Tobias Hurth, Farvah Mahmoudi, Yann Monceaux, Siavash Neshatpour
We present a critical assessment of the present B anomalies in the exclusive b → s ℓ ℓ mode based on the QCD factorization (QCDf) approach. In particular, we analyze the impact of different local form factor calculations and of the largest bin in the low- q 2 region. We also present a model-independent analysis of the new results of the LHCb and CMS experiments on the B → K * μ + μ − angular observables. In addition, we update the global fit by including all b → s observables incorporating the new data from CMS and the LHCb. In these analyses, we use 10% or higher guesstimates of the nonfactorizable power corrections as additional uncertainties, serving as a placeholder for robust estimates of these contributions. Updating earlier results, we also analyze the combined LHCb and CMS data on the B → K * μ + μ − angular observables using data-driven approaches to find indications of whether these tensions between the QCDf predictions and the present data are due to underestimated subleading hadronic contributions or due to new physics effects.