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Large Charmless Yield in B Decays and Inclusive B Decay Puzzles

In recent studies of inclusive $B$ decays, it has been suggested that either $B$ mesons decay much more copiously to final states with no open charm than currently assumed, or $B(D^0 \to K^-π^+)$ has to be reduced significantly. This note takes the experimental $B(D^0 \to K^-π^+)$ at its face value and estimates $B(b\to$ no open charm) using complementary methods: one accounts for the $c$ quark in $b\to c$ transitions, the other accounts for the $\bar c$ quark in $b\to c\bar c s$ transitions. Through cancellation of errors, the average gives our best estimate of $B(b\to$ no open charm), and the difference measures the consistency. The results of the methods are consistent with each other, strongly suggesting a much enhanced $B(b\to$ no open charm). This observation indicates that non-perturbative QCD effects are probably causing a sizable fraction of the $b\to c\bar cs$ transitions to be seen as charmless $b\to s$ processes, contrary to smaller traditional expectations. This mechanism has generally been overlooked and may explain the existing experimental data within the framework of the standard model. We then briefly discuss implications on baryon production governed by $b\to c\bar cs$ processes, rare hadronic $B$ decays and CP violation studies.