  We study the radiative decay B -> gamma l nu_l in the framework of QCD
factorization. We demonstrate explicitly that, in the heavy-quark limit and at
one-loop order in perturbation theory, the amplitude does factorize, i.e. that
it can be written as a convolution of a perturbatively calculable
hard-scattering amplitude with the (non-perturbative) light-cone distribution
amplitude of the B-meson. We evaluate the hard-scattering amplitude at one-loop
order and verify that the large logarithms are those expected from a study of
the b->u transition in the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory. Assuming that this
is also the case at higher orders, we resum the large logarithms and perform an
exploratory phenomenological analysis. The questions addressed in this study
are also relevant for the applications of the QCD factorization formalism to
two-body non-leptonic B-decays, in particular to the component of the amplitude
arising from hard spectator interactions.
