Radiative Weak Annihilation Decays

Abstract

A class of meson decay modes sensitive to only one quark topology at leading G_F order (annihilation of valence quarks through a W) is described. No experimental observations, nor even upper limits, have been reported for these decays. This work presents a simpleminded (order-of-magnitude) calculation of their branching fractions, and compares to results of previous calculations where available. Although rare, one of these modes (D_s^+ --> rho^+ gamma) might already be observable at charm experiments, two others (D^+ --> K^{*+} gamma, B^+ --> D_s^{*+} gamma) should appear at the B factories, and the rest at hadron colliders.