New Information on B Decays to Charmless VP Final States

The decays of $B$ mesons to charmless final states consisting of a vector meson ($V$) and a pseudoscalar meson ($P$) are analyzed within flavor SU(3). Predictions are compared with new data from the CLEO Collaboration. Dominant contributions to amplitudes and subdominant interfering terms are identified. Evidence is found for a specific penguin amplitude (contributing, for example, to $B^+ \to \rho^+ K^0$) at a level much higher than that implied by most explicit models. The validity of the conclusion $\cos \gamma < 0$, obtained through other analyses of $B \to VP$ decays, is examined here from a less model-dependent standpoint. It is found that several processes are consistent with $\cos \gamma < 0$ (or $\cos \alpha > 0$), and measurements are suggested which could make this conclusion more robust.