Recoil phase effect in exclusive B decays:: Implications for CP violation

In the perturbative QCD approach to exclusive B decays to two light mesons, the leading twist contribution corresponds to those diagrams in the Lepage-Brodsky expansion in which the would be spectator quark receives its recoil momentum via one gluon exchange. We show that the resulting amplitude, which in the spectator model is real, acquires an imaginary part which may be comparable in size to its real part. Thus, this source of the strong interaction phase in the amplitude must be taken into account in general to discuss, reliably, the expectations for CP violation in B decays at any B-factory type scenario.