FACTORIZATION THEOREMS, EFFECTIVE-FIELD THEORY, AND NONLEPTONIC HEAVYMESON DECAYS

The nonleptonic heavy meson decays B-->D()pi(rho), J/psi K(*), and D- ->K()pi are studied based on the three-scale perturbative QCD factori zation theorem developed recently. In this formalism the Bauer-Stech-W irbel parameters a(1) and a(2) are treated as the Wilson coefficients, whose evolution from the W boson mass down to the characteristic scal e of the decay processes is determined by effective field theory. The evolution from the characteristic scale to a lower hadronic scale is f ormulated by the Sudakov resummation. The scale-setting ambiguity, whi ch exists in the conventional approach to nonleptonic heavy meson deca ys, is removed. Nonfactorizable and nonspectator contributions are tak en into account as part of the hard decay subamplitudes. Our formalism is applicable to both bottom and charm decays, and predictions, inclu ding those for the ratios R and R-L associated with the B --> J/psi K( ) decays, are consistent with experimental data.