Long-distance effects in $B\to V\gamma$ radiative weak decays

A systematic approach to long-distance effects in exclusive radiative weak $B$ decays is presented, based on a combination of the heavy quark limit with perturbative QCD. The dominant long-distance effects, connected with weak annihilation and $W$-exchange topologies, can be computed in a model-independent way using experimental data on $B$ radiative leptonic decays. Nonfactorizable corrections vanish in the chiral limit and to leading twist. The left-handed photon amplitudes are shown to be enhanced relative to the right-handed ones, both in the long- and short-distance parts of the $\bar B$ decay amplitudes. We discuss the implications of our results for the extraction of $|V_{td}|$.