New information on B decays to charmless VP final states -: art. no. 073008

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+-->p(+)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-->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.