Extracting information on CKM phases, electroweak penguin diagrams, and new physics from B -> VV decays - art. no. 013007

We derive constraints for B --> V1V2 modes (V-1,V-2 = vector meson) that al low a model-independent quantitative assessment of the contributions from e lectroweak penguin diagrams and/or new physics. The interplay of direct CP with oscillation studies then may lead to the extraction of the angle alpha , using B --> K*omega(rho) and B --> rho omega(phi). Any reservation one ma y have can be explicitly verified in a model-independent way by assuming on ly isospin conservation. We also briefly mention how the method can be used to extract gamma via B-s decays: B-s --> K* rho, (K) over bar*K*.