Critical study ofBdecays to light pseudoscalars

Motivated by the large branching ratios observed for the process $\overrightarrow{B}{\eta }^{\prime }K,$ we examine critically all the ingredients that go into estimates of $B$ decays into two light pseudoscalars. Within the factorization approximation, we examine several assumptions on the input parameters that could have a strong bearing on the predictions. Among these are (i) the QCD scale $\mu ,$ (ii) value of the form factors, (iii) value of the light quark masses, and in particular $m_s,$ (iv) the value $\xi {=1/N}_c,$ and (v) charm content of ${\eta }^{\prime }.$ It is possible to account for all the data without invoking new physics, though future experiments will provide tighter constraints on the parameter space. We find that $\mathrm{CP}$ violating asymmetries are in the observable range for some modes.