Charmless hadronic B decays into a tensor meson

Two-body charmless hadronic B decays involving a tensor meson in the final state are studied within the framework of QCD factorization (QCDF). Because of the G-parity of the tensor meson, both the chiral-even and chiral-odd two-parton light-cone distribution amplitudes of the tensor meson are antisymmetric under the interchange of momentum fractions of the quark and antiquark in the SU(3) limit. Our main results are: (i) In the naieve factorization approach, the decays such as B{sup -}{yields}K{sub 2}*{sup 0}{pi}{sup -} and B{sup 0}{yields}K{sub 2}*{sup -}{pi}{sup +} with a tensor meson emitted are prohibited because a tensor meson cannot be created from the local V-A or tensor current. Nevertheless, the decays receive nonfactorizable contributions in QCDF from vertex, penguin and hard spectator corrections. The experimental observation of B{sup -}{yields}K{sub 2}*{sup 0}{pi}{sup -} indicates the importance of nonfactorizable effects. (ii) For penguin-dominated B{yields}TP and TV decays, the predicted rates in naieve factorization are usually too small by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude. In QCDF, they are enhanced by power corrections from penguin annihilation and nonfactorizable contributions. (iii) The dominant penguin contributions to B{yields}K{sub 2}*{eta}{sup (')} arise from the processes: (a) b{yields}sss{yields}s{eta}{sub s} and (b) b{yields}sqq{yields}qK{sub 2}* with {eta}{sub q}=(uu+dd)/{radical}(2) and {eta}{sub s}=ss. The interference, constructive for K{sub 2}*{eta}{sup '} and destructive for K{sub 2}*{eta}, explains why {Gamma}(B{yields}K{sub 2}*{eta}{sup '})>>{Gamma}(B{yields}K{sub 2}*{eta}). (iv) We use the measured rates of B{yields}K{sub 2}*({omega},{phi}) to extract the penguin-annihilation parameters {rho}{sub A}{sup TV} and {rho}{sub A}{sup VT} and the observed longitudinal polarization fractions f{sub L}(K{sub 2}*{omega}) and f{sub L}(K{sub 2}*{phi}) to fix the phases {phi}{sub A}{sup VT} and {phi}{sub A}{sup TV}. (v) The experimental observation that f{sub T}/f{sub L}