Model-independent description of B→Dπℓν decays

Abstract

We introduce a new parametrization of B→Dπℓν form factors using a partial-wave expansion and derive bounds on the series coefficients using analyticity and unitarity. This is the first generalization of the model-independent formalism developed by Boyd, Grinstein, and Lebed for B→Dℓν to semileptonic decays with multihadron final states, and enables data-driven form-factor determinations with robust, systematically improvable uncertainties. Using this formalism, we extract the form-factor parameters for B→D2*(→Dπ)ℓν decays in a model-independent way from fits of data from the Belle Experiment. We find that the semileptonic data are compatible with the presence of two poles in the Dπ S-wave channel, which is the scenario preferred by nonleptonic decays and unitarized chiral perturbation theory. Published by the American Physical Society 2024