Flavor SU(3) symmetry and QCD factorization in $B \to PP$ and $PV$ decays

Abstract: Using flavor SU(3) symmetry, we perform a model-independent analysis of charmless $\bar B_{u,d} (\bar B_s) \to PP, ~PV$ decays. All the relevant topological diagrams, including the presumably subleading diagrams, such as the QCD- and EW-penguin exchange diagrams and flavor-singlet weak annihilation ones, are introduced. Indeed, the QCD-penguin exchange diagram turns out to be important in understanding the data for penguin-dominated decay modes. In this work we make efforts to bridge the (model-independent but less quantitative) topological diagram or flavor SU(3) approach and the (quantitative but somewhat model-dependent) QCD factorization (QCDF) approach in these decays, by explicitly showing how to translate each flavor SU(3) amplitude into the corresponding terms in the QCDF framework. After estimating each flavor SU(3) amplitude numerically using QCDF, we discuss various physical consequences, including SU(3) breaking effects and some useful SU(3) relations among decay amplitudes of $\bar B_s \to PV$ and $\bar B_d \to PV$.