Soft Pion Emission in Semileptonic $B$-Meson Decays

An analysis of semileptonic decays of $B$ mesons with the emission of a single soft pion is presented in the framework of the heavy-quark limit using an effective Lagrangian which implements chiral and heavy-quark symmetries. The analysis is performed at leading order of the chiral and inverse heavy mass expansions. In addition to the ground state heavy mesons some of their resonances are included. The estimates of the various effective coupling constants and form factors needed in the analysis are obtained using a chiral quark model. As the main result, a clear indication is found that the $0^{+}$ and $1^{+}$ resonances substantially affect the decay mode with a $D^{\ast}$ in the final state, and a less dramatic effect is also noticed in the $D$ mode. An analysis of the decay spectrum in the $D^{(\ast)}-\pi$ squared invariant mass is carried out, showing the main effects of including the resonances. The obtained rates show promising prospects for studies of soft pion emission in semileptonic $B$-meson decays in a $B$-meson factory where, modulo experimental cuts, about $10^5$ such decays in the $D$ meson mode and $10^4$ in the $D^{\ast}$ mode could be observed per year.