Weak decays of doubly heavy baryons: “decay constants”

Inspired by the recent observation of the Ξ_c~+_c~+)by the LHCb Collaboration, we explore the "decay constants" of doubly heavy baryons in the framework of QCD sum rules. With the Ξ_cc),Ξ_(bc),Ξ_(bb), and ?_(cc),?_(bc),?_(bb) baryons interpolated by three-quark operators, we calculate the correlation functions using the operator product expansion and include the contributions from operators up to dimension six. On the hadron side, we consider both contributions from the lowest-lying states with JP=1/2~+ and from negative parity baryons with JP=1/2~-. We find that the results are stable and the contaminations from negative parity baryons are not severe. These results are ingredients for the QCD study of weak decays and other properties of doubly-heavy baryons.     

Weak decays of heavy baryons in the light-front approach

In this work, we analyse semi-leptonic and non-leptonic weak decays of the heavy baryons: Λ_b,Ξ_b,?_b and Λ_c,Ξ_c,?_c. For non-leptonic decay modes, we study only the factorizable channels induced by the external Wemission. The two spectator quarks in the baryonic transitions are treated as a diquark and form factors are calculated in the light-front approach. Using the results for form factors, we also calculate some corresponding semi-leptonic and non-leptonic decay widths. We find that our results are comparable with the available experimental data and other theoretical predictions. Decay branching fractions for many channels are found to reach the level 10~(-3)~10~(-2),which is promising for discovery in future measurements at BESIII, LHCb and Belle II. The SU(3) symmetry in semi-leptonic decays is examined and sources of symmetry breaking are discussed.     

Discussions on the stability of diquarks

Since the birth of the quark model, the diquark, which is composed of two quarks, has been considered as a substantial structure of a color anti-triplet. This is not only a mathematical simplification for dealing with baryons, but also provides a physical picture where the diquark would behave as a whole object. It is natural to ask whether such a structure is sufficiently stable against external disturbance. The mass spectra of the ground states of the scalar and axial-vector diquarks, which are composed of two-light (L-L), one-light-one-heavy (H-L) and two-heavy (H-H) quarks, respectively, have been calculated in terms of the QCD sum rules. We suggest a criterion as the quantitative standard for the stability of the diquark. It is the gap between the masses of the diquark and √s₀ where s₀ is the threshold of the excited states and continuity, namely the larger the gap is, the more stable the diquark would be. In this work, we calculate the masses of the H-H type to complete the series of the spectra of the ground state diquarks. However, as the criterion being taken, we find that all the gaps for the various diquarks are within a small range. In particular, the gap for the diquark with two heavy quarks, which is believed to be a stable structure, is slightly smaller than that of the other two types of diquarks. Therefore we conclude that because of the large theoretical uncertainty, we cannot use the numerical results obtained with the QCD sum rules to assess the stability of diquarks, but need to invoke other theoretical framework.     

Spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking of lattice QCD with massless dynamical quarks

One of the most challenging issues in QCD is the investigation of spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking, which is characterized by the non-vanishing chiral condensate when the bare fermion mass is zero. In standard methods of the lattice gauge theory, one has to perform expensive simulations at multiple bare quark masses, and employ some modeled functions to extrapolate the data to the chiral limit. This paper applies the probability distribution function method to computing the chiral condensate in lattice QCD with massless dynamical quarks, without any ambiguous mass extrapolation. The results for staggered quarks indicate that this might be a promising and efficient method for investigating the spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking in lattice QCD, which deserves further investigation.     

Strong decays of the low-lying bottom strange baryons

In this work,the strong decay behaviors of the λ-mode low-lying Ξ_b and Ξ'_b baryons are investigated within the ~3 P_0 model.Our results suggest that all of the low-lying 3_F states Ξ_b(2 S),Ξ_b(1 P),and Ξ_b(1 D) have small decay widths of less than 20 MeV,and these states have good potentials to be observed in the Ξ'_bπ and Ξ'_b~*π invariant masses.Further,most of the 6_F multiplets are relatively narrow and may decay into the Ξ_bπ,Ξ'_bπ,Ξ'_b~*π,and Δ_bK final states.Considering the masses and strong decay behaviors,we can assign the newly observed Ξ_b(6100) resonance as the Ξ_b(1 P) state with J~P=3/2~-and interpret the Ξ_b(6227)structure as the J~P=3/2~-Ξ'_b(1 P) state with a proper mixing angle.We expect that our predictions for these excited bottom strange baryons will provide helpful information for future experimental research.     

Discovery potentials of doubly charmed baryons

The existence of doubly heavy flavor baryons has not been well established experimentally so far. In this Letter we systematically investigate the weak decays of the doubly charmed baryons, Ξ~(++)_(cc)and Ξ~+_(cc), which should be helpful for experimental searches for these particles. The long-distance contributions are first studied in the doubly heavy baryon decays, and found to be significantly enhanced. Comparing all the processes, Ξ~(++)_(cc)→Λ~+_cK~-π~+π~+andΞ~+_cπ~+ are the most favorable decay modes for experiments to search for doubly heavy baryons.     

Baryon structure from Lattice QCD

We present recent lattice results on the baryon spectrum, nucleon electromagnetic and axial form factors, nucleon to △ transition form factors as well as the △ electromagnetic form factors. The masses of the low lying baryons and the nucleon form factors are calculated using two degenerate flavors of twisted mass fermions down to pion mass of about 270 MeV. We compare to the results of other collaborations. The nucleon to △ transition and △ form factors are calculated in a hybrid scheme, which uses staggered sea quarks and domain wall valence quarks. The dominant magnetic dipole nucleon to △ transition form factor is also evaluated using dynamical domain wall fermions. The momentum frame are extracted using the form factors transverse density distributions of the △ in the infinite determined from lattice QCD.     

Spectra of charmed and bottom baryons with hyperfine interaction

Up to now,the excited charmed and bottom baryon states have still not been well studied experimentally or theoretically.In this paper,we predict the mass of ?*b,the only L=0 baryon state which has not been observed,to be 6069.2 Me V.The spectra of charmed and bottom baryons with the orbital angular momentum L = 1 are studied in two popular constituent quark models,the Goldstone boson exchange(GBE) model and the one gluon exchange(OGE) hyperfine interaction model.Inserting the latest experimental data from the "Review of Particle Physics",we find that in the GBE model,there exist some multiplets(Σc(b),Ξ c(b)and ?c(b)) in which the total spin of the three quarks in their lowest energy states is 3/2,but in the OGE model there is no such phenomenon.This is the most important difference between the GBE and OGE models.These results can be tested in the near future.We suggest more efforts to study the excited charmed and bottom baryons both theoretically and experimentally,not only for the abundance of baryon spectra,but also for determining which hyperfine interaction model best describes nature.     

Vector Meson Mass in Finite Density and Temperature Lattice QCD

Vector meson mass values are studied at finite chemical potential and temperature in lattice QCD with lattice size of 24 × 122× 6 using two flavors of staggered quarks. The investigation focuses on the change of the vector meson mass in the critical region close to T c with two different types of chemical potentials switched on: the isoscalar chemical potential μS and its isovector counterpart μV. It is found that the vector meson mass increases in the QGP phase with both chemical potentials and decreases with μS in the confinement phase.     

Transition Temperature of Two-Degenerate-Flavour QCD in the Chiral Limit

We present the results for the transition temperature of quantum chromodynamics （QCD） with two degenerate flavours （Nf = 2） of Wilson quarks. On lattice 8^3 × 4 with 4 representing the temporal extent, by using the Ferrenberg-Swendsen reweighting method, we determine the critical β = 6/g^2 where the transition occurs, g is the coupling constant. On lattice 8^2 × 20 × 4, by using the axial vector Ward-Takahashi identity, we calculate the current quark mass amq, a is the lattice spacing. Assuming the O（4） scaling, the critical β in the chiral limit is determined. We calculate the p meson mass amp at zero temperature on lattice 8^3 × 20. By using the experimental p meson mass to set the scale, we obtain 194（1） MeV for the transition temperature in the chiral limit.     

Spectra of Free Diquark in the Bethe-Salpeter Approach

In this work, we employ the Bethe-Salpeter （B-S） equation to investigate the spectra of free diquarks and their B-S wave functions. We find that the B-S approach can be consistently applied to study the diqaurks with two heavy quarks or one heavy and one light quarks, but for two light-quark systems, the results are not reliable. There are a few free parameters in the whole scenario which can only be fixed phenomenologically. Thus, to determine them, one has to study baryons which are composed of quarks and diquarks.     

Quark Virtuality and QCD Vacuum Condensates

Based on the Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSEs) in the ‘rainbow‘ approximation, we investigate the quark virtuality in the vacuum state and quantum-chromodynamics (QCD) vacuum condensates. In particular, we calculate the local quark vacuum condensate and quark-gluon mixed condensates, and then the virtuality of quark. The calculated quark virtualities are λu,d^2 0.7 GeV^2 for u, d quarks, and λs^2=1.6 GeV^2 for s quark. Our theoretical predictions are consistent with empirical values used in QCD sum rules, and also fit to lattice QCD predictions.     

An updated study of Υ production and polarization at the Tevatron and LHC

Following the nonrelativistic QCD factorization scheme,by taking the latest available measurements of X_(bJ)(3P)into consideration,we present an updated study on the yield and polarization of Υ(1S,2S,3S) hadroproduction,and the fractions of x_(bJ)(mP)feed-down in Υ (nS) production at QCD next-to-leading order.In the fitting,three schemes are applied with different choices of x_(bJ)(mP) feed-down ratios and NRQCD factorization scale.The results can explain the measurements of yield very well.The polarization puzzle to γ(3S) is now solved by considering the x_(bJ)(3P) feed-down contributions.The ratio of σ[x_(b2)(1P)]/σ[x_(b1)(1P)]measured by the CMS experiment can also be reproduced in our prediction.Among the different schemes,the results show little difference,but there are sizeable differences for the fitted long-distance color-octet matrix elements.This may bring large uncertainties when the values are applied in theoretical predictions for other experiments such as those at ee,ep colliders.     

Full lattice QCD study of the κ scalar meson

We studied the κ light scalar meson in 2+1 flavor full QCD with sufficiently light u and d quarks. Via lattice simulation we measured the correlators for the κ channel in the “Asqtad” improved staggered fermion formulation. After chiral extrapolation we obtained the mass of the κ meson with 826±119 MeV, which is within recent experimental values of 800-900 MeV. The simulations were carried out with the MILC 2+1 flavor gauge configurations at lattice spacing a ≈ 0.15 fm.     

Challenges in uncovering the origin of the proton's spin

One of the most fascinating challenges facing modern strong interaction physics is to understand the origin of the spin of the nucleon in terms of the spin and orbital angular momentum of the quarks and gluons.We review recent progress on this problem as well as some of the uncertainties associated with state of the art lattice QCD simulations.In particular,we explain the importance of the corrections associated with chiral extrapolation and finite volume corrections,especially for the term B（0） extracted from the appropriate low moment of the deeply virtual Compton scattering amplitude.     

Synchronization between Different Networks

Synchronization between two networks with different topology structures and different dynamical behaviours is studied. These two different networks are driving and responding networks, respectively. Under the preconditions that the driving network gets synchronization, we give the conditions for the responding network to be synchronized to the same dynamics as the driving network with the help of the open-plus-closed-loop method. Then a example is given to verify the validity of the theoretical results.     

Photoproduction of Vector Meson Ф off Deuteron in QCD Inspired Model

Based on the quark-gluon contents of nucleon and strongly believing that the force mediators, Pomeron and its counterpart in the conventional approach of Regge theory, for high energy diffractive process would be the tensor glueball and Odderon respectively, we discuss photo-production of vector meson Ф off the deuteron at energy less than 3 GeV in the QCD inspired model in which the quark gluon degrees of freedom and glueball, Odderon exchange are taken into account. A calculation is performed for γ ＋ D →Ф ＋ D, and the theoretical predictions of the differential cross section dσ^γD/dt, are presented and compared with available experimental data. Our QCD inspired model reproduces data quite well in the whole range of the experimental measurements up to ｜t｜ ≌ 0.4 GeV. Our results can be used to extract γn → Фn data, which cannot be measured in experiment.     

Spectrum of b-baryons: color hyperfine interaction vs. experiment

I discuss several recent highly accurate theoretical predictions for masses of baryons containing the b quark,especially Ωb （ssb） very recently reported by CDF.I also point out an approximate effective supersymmetry between heavy quark baryons and mesons and provide predictions for the magnetic moments of Λc and Λb .Proper treatment of the color-magnetic hyperfine interaction in QCD is crucial for obtaining these results.     

Effects of vector leptoquarks on Λ_b→ Λ_c?■_? decay

Experimental data on R(D~((*))),R(K~((*))),and R(J/Ψ),provided by different collaborations,show sizable deviations from the standard model predictions.To describe these anomalies,many new physics scenarios have been proposed.One of them is the leptoquark model,which introduces the simultaneous coupling of vector and scalar leptoquarks to quarks and leptons.To look for similar possible anomalies in the baryonic sector,we investigate the effects of a vector leptoquark U3(3,3,2/3) on various physical quantities related to the tree-level ∧_b→∧_c■ decays(■=μτ),which proceed via b→ c■ transitions at the quark level.We calculate the differential branching ratio,forward-backward asymmetry,and longitudinal polarizations of leptons and ∧c baryons at the μ and τ lepton channels in the leptoquark model and compare their behavior to the predictions of the SM in terms of q~2.In the calculations,we use the form factors calculated in full QCD as the main input and account for all errors coming from the form factors and model parameters.We observe that at the τ channel,the R_A fit solution to data related to the leptoquark model sweeps some regions out of the SM band;nevertheless,the fit has a considerable intersection with the SM predictions.The R_B type solution gives roughly the same results as the SM on DBR(q~2)-q~2.At the μ channel,the leptoquark model gives results that are consistent with the SM predictions and existing experimental data on the behavior of DBR(q~2) with respect to q~2.Concerning the q2 behavior of the A_(FB)(q~2),the two types of fits for τand the predictions at the μ channel in the leptoquark model give exactly the same results as the SM.We also investigate the behavior of the parameter R(q~2) with respect to q~2 and the value of R(∧_C) in both the vector leptoquark and SM models.Both fit solutions lead to results that deviate considerably from the SM predictions for R(q~2)-q~2 and R(∧_C).Future experimental data on R(q~2)-q~2 and R(∧_C),made available by measurements of the ∧_b→∧_cτ■τ channel,will be particularly helpful.Any experimental deviations from the SM predictions in this channel would emphasize the importance of tree-level hadronic weak transitions as good probes of new physics effects beyond the SM.     

Triply heavy baryons in the constituent quark model

The constituent quark model is used to compute the ground and excited state masses of QQQ baryons containing either c or b quarks.The quark model parameters previously used to describe the properties of charmonium and bottomonium states were used in this analysis.The non-relativistic three-body bound state problem is solved by means of the Gaussian expansion method which provides sufficient accuracy and simplifies the subsequent evaluation of the matrix elements.Several low-lying states with quantum numbers J^P=1/2^±,3/2^±,5/2^±and 7/2^+are reported.We compare the results with those obtained by the other theoretical formalisms.There is a general agreement for the mass of the ground state in each sector of triply heavy baryons.However,the situation is more puzzling for the excited states,and appropriate comments about the most relevant features of our comparison are given.