Measurements of branching fractions, polarizations, and direct CP-violation asymmetries in B ->rho K-* and b -> f(0)(980)K-* decays

We report searches for B-meson decays to the charmless final states rho K-* and f(0)(980)K-* with a sample of 232x10(6) B (B) over bar pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e(+)e(-) collider. We measure in units of 10(-6) the following branching fractions, where the first error quoted is statistical and the second systematic, or upper limits are given at the 90% confidence level : B(B+->rho K-0(*+))< 6.1, B(B+->rho K-+(*0))=9.6 +/- 1.7 +/- 1.5, B(B-0 ->rho K--(*+))< 12.0, B(B-0 ->rho K-0(*0))=5.6 +/- 0.9 +/- 1.3, B(B+-> f(0)(980)K*+)=5.2 +/- 1.2 +/- 0.5, and B(B-0 -> f(0)(980)K-*0)< 4.3. For the significant modes, we also measure the fraction of longitudinal polarization and the charge asymmetry: f(L)(B+->rho K-+(*0))=0.52 +/- 0.10 +/- 0.04, f(L)(B-0 ->rho K-0(*0))=0.57 +/- 0.09 +/- 0.08, A(CP)(B+->rho K-+(*0))=-0.01 +/- 0.16 +/- 0.02, A(CP)(B-0 ->rho K-0(*0))=0.09 +/- 0.19 +/- 0.02, and A(CP)(B+-> f(0)(980)K*+)=-0.34 +/- 0.21 +/- 0.03.