Based on the low-energy effective Hamiltonian with generalized factorization, we calculate the new physics contributions to the branching ratios of the two-body charmless hadronic decays of $B_u$ and $B_d$ mesons induced by the new gluonic and electroweak charged-Higgs penguin diagrams in the general two-Higgs doublet models (models I, II, and III). Within the considered parameter space, we find the following. (a) The new physics effects from new gluonic penguin diagrams strongly dominate over those from the new γ- and $Z^0$- penguin diagrams. (b) In models I and II, new physics contributions to most studied B meson decay channels are rather small in size, from $-15\%$ to $20\%.$ (c) In model III, however, the new physics enhancements to the penguin-dominated decay modes can be significant, $\sim (30\mathrm{}–200)\%,$ and therefore are measurable in forthcoming high precision B experiments. (d) The new physics enhancements to ratios $\mathcal{B}\left(\overrightarrow{B}K{\eta }^{\prime }\right)$ are significant in model III, $\sim (35\mathrm{}–70)\%,$ and hence provide a simple and plausible new physics interpretation for the observed unexpectedly large $\overrightarrow{B}K{\eta }^{\prime }$ decay rates. (e) The theoretical predictions for $\mathcal{B}\left(\overrightarrow{B}{K}^{+}\pi \right)$ and $\mathcal{B}\left(\overrightarrow{B}{K}^0{\pi }^{+}\right)$ in model III are still consistent with the data within $2\sigma$ errors. (f) The significant new physics enhancements to the branching ratios of $\overrightarrow{B}{K}^0{\pi }^0,$ $K^{*}\eta ,$ $K^{*+}{\pi }^{-},$ $K^{+}\phi ,$ $K^{*0}\omega ,$ $K^{*+}\phi ,$ and $K^{*0}\phi$ decays are helpful to improve the agreement between the data and the theoretical predictions. (g) The theoretical predictions of $\mathcal{B}(\overrightarrow{B}PP,PV,VV)$ in the 2HDM’s are generally consistent with experimental measurements and upper limits (90% C.L.)

• Received 27 October 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.63.074005