Intrinsic charm of light mesons and CP violation in heavy quark decay

Abstract

We investigate the impact of the intrinsic heavy quark states on the predicted values of CP asymmetries in the decays of heavy mesons. It is shown that the intrinsic charm contribution, although dynamically suppressed in QCD, is favored by the weak interaction, and therefore it can significantly dilute the predicted values of CP-violating asymmetries. This introduces additional non-perturbative uncertainty into the estimate of direct CP violating effects. We provide a phenomenological estimate of intrinsic charm content of eta and eta' mesons by expanding various amplitudes in terms of the heavy-light quark mixing angle and discuss theoretical uncertainties in the estimates of direct CP-violating asymmetries in B -> eta^(') K^(*).