Paper detail

The electromagnetic dipole operator effect on B -> Xs gamma at O(alpha_s^2)

The flavor-changing electromagnetic dipole operator O_7 gives the dominant contribution to the B -> Xs gamma decay rate. We calculate two-loop QCD corrections to its matrix element together with the corresponding bremsstrahlung contributions. The optical theorem is applied, and the relevant imaginary parts of three-loop diagrams are computed following the lines of our recent t -> Xb W calculation. The complete result allows us to test the validity of the naive non-abelianization (NNA) approximation that has been previously applied to estimate the NNLO QCD correction to Gamma(B -> Xs gamma)/Gamma(B -> Xu e nu). When both decay widths are normalized to m^5_{b,R} in the same renormalization scheme R, the calculated O(alpha_s^2) correction is sizeable (~ 6%), and the NNA estimate is about 1/3 too large. On the other hand, when the ratio of the decay widths is written as S*(m_b(m_b)/m_{b,pole})^2, the calculated O(alpha_s^2) correction to S is at the level of 1% for both the complete and the NNA results.