Determining the Efficacy of Different Parameterizations of the z-expansion

Abstract: We develop a methodology to test the accuracy of lattice extrapolations of the form factors in B decays only using experimental data. We test this methodology by comparing the BGL parameterization proposed by Boyd, Grinstein, and Lebed (1996) and the BCL parameterization proposed by Bourrely Caprini and Lellouch (2008) in the context of $B \rightarrow \pi \ell \nu$. Our results suggest that the BCL parameterization is a slightly better predictor of the low $q^2$ region than the BGL parameterization and that this methodology can be extended to other decays such as $B\rightarrow D\ell \nu$.