Abstract: According to heavy-meson chiral perturbation theory, the vector form factor f+(q(2)) of exclusive semileptonic decay B -> pi l nu is closely related, at least in the soft-pion region ( i.e., q(2) similar to (m(B) – m(pi))(2)), to the strong coupling g(B*B pi) or the normalized coupling (g)over-cap. Combining the precisely measured q2 spectrum of B -> pi l nu decay by the BABAR and Belle collaborations with several parametrizations of the form factor f +(q(2)), we can extract these couplings from the residue of the form factor at the B* pole, which relies on an extrapolation of the form factor from the semileptonic region to the unphysical point q(2) = m(B*)(2). Comparing the extracted values with the other experimental and theoretical estimates, we can test these various form-factor parametrizations, which differ from each other by the amount of physical information embedded in. It is found that the extracted values based on the Becirevic-Kaidalov, Ball-Zwicky and Bourrely-Caprini-Lellouch parametrizations are consistent with each other and roughly in agreement with the other theoretical and lattice estimates, while the Boyd-Grinstein-Lebed ansatz, featured by a spurious, unwanted pole at the threshold of the cut, gives a neatly larger value.

Abstract: We study the anomalous electromagnetic pion form factor F-pi 0 gamma*gamma* with a set of holographic models. By comparing with the measured value of the linear slope, some of these models can be ruled out. From the remaining models, we obtain predictions for the low-energy quadratic slope parameters of F-pi 0 gamma*gamma* , currently out of experimental reach but testable in the near future. We find it particularly useful to encode this low-energy information in a form factor able to satisfy also QCD short-distance constraints. We choose the form factor introduced by D'Ambrosio, Isidori, and Portoles in kaon decays, which has the right short distance for a particular value of the quadratic slope, which is later shown to be compatible with our holographic predictions. We then turn to a determination of the (dominant) pion exchange diagram in the hadronic light by light scattering contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment. We quantify the theoretical uncertainty in (g – 2)(mu) coming from the different input we use: QCD short distances, experimental input, and low-energy holographic predictions. We also test the pion-pole approximation. Our final result is a(mu)(pi 0) = 6: 54(25) x 10(-10), where the error is driven by the linear slope of F-pi 0 gamma*gamma* , soon to be measured with precision at KLOE-2. Our numerical analysis also indicates that large values of the magnetic susceptibility chi 0 are disfavored, therefore pointing at a mild effect from the pion off-shellness. However, in the absence of stronger bounds on chi 0, an additional (10-15)% systematic uncertainty on the previous value for a(mu)(pi 0) cannot be excluded.

Abstract: We report the results of a study of the exclusive charmless semileptonic decays, B+ -> eta(l)l(+)nu and B-0 -> pi(-)l(+)nu undertaken with approximately 464 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs collected at the Y(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector. The analysis uses events in which the signal B decays are reconstructed with a loose neutrino reconstruction technique. We obtain partial branching fractions for B+ -> eta l(+)nu and B-0 -> pi(-)l(+)nu decays in three and 12 bins of q(2), respectively, from which we extract the f (+)(q(2)) form-factor shapes and the total branching fractions B(B+ -> eta l(+)nu)= (0.36 +/- 0.05(stat) +/- 0.04(syst)) x 10(-4) and B(B-0 -> pi(-)l(+)nu) = (1.42 +/- 0.05(stat) +/- 0.07(syst)) x 10(-4). We also measure B(B+ -> eta'l(+)nu) = (0.24 +/- 0.08(stat) +/- 0.03(syst)) x 10(-4). We obtain values for the magnitude of the CKM matrix element |V-ub| using three different QCD calculations.

Abstract: We present a measurement of the top-quark pair-production cross section in p (p) over bar collisions at root s = 1.96 TeV using a data sample corresponding to 1.7 fb(-1) of integrated luminosity collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We reconstruct t (t) over bar events in the lepton + jets channel, consisting of e nu + jets and μnu + jets final states. The dominant background is the production of W bosons in association with multiple jets. To suppress this background, we identify electrons from the semileptonic decay of heavy-flavor jets ("soft electron tags''). From a sample of 2196 candidate events, we obtain 120 tagged events with a background expectation of 51 +/- 3 events, corresponding to a cross section of sigma(t (t) over bar) = 7.8 +/- 2.4(stat) +/- 1.6(syst) +/- 0.5(lumi) pb. We assume a top-quark mass of 175 GeV/c(2). This is the first measurement of the t (t) over bar cross section with soft electron tags in run II of the Tevatron.

Abstract: Based on 122 X 10(6)Y(3S) events collected with the BABAR detector, we have observed the Y(1(3)D(J)) bottomonium state through the Y(3S) -> gamma gamma Y(1(3)D(J)) -> gamma gamma pi(+)pi Y-(1S) decay chain. The significance for the J = 2 member of the Y(1(3)D(J)) triplet is 5.8 standard deviations including systematic uncertainties. The mass of the J = 2 state is determined to be 10 164.5 +/- 0.8(stat) +/- 0.5(syst) MeV/c(2). We use the pi(+)pi(-) invariant mass distribution to confirm the consistency of the observed state with the orbital angular momentum assignment of the Y(1(3)D(J)).