Perturbative QCD study of the B-> K^* gamma decay

Abstract

We apply the perturbative QCD factorization theorem developed recently for nonleptonic heavy meson decays to the radiative decay $B\to K^*\gamma$. In this formalism the evolution of the Wilson coefficients from the $W$ boson mass down to the characteristic scale of the decay process is governed by the effective weak Hamiltonian. The evolution from the characteristic scale to a lower hadronic scale is formulated by the Sudakov resummation. Besides computing the dominant contribution arising from the magnetic-penguin operator $O_7$, we also calculate the contributions of four-quark operators. By fitting our prediction for the branching ratio of the $B\to K^*\gamma$ decay to the CLEO data, we determine the $B$ meson wave function, that possesses a sharp peak at a low momentum fraction.