Another Source of Baryons in $B$ Meson Decays

Abstract

It is usually assumed that the production of baryons in $B$ meson decays is induced primarily by the quark level process $b\to c\bar{u}d$, where the charm quark hadronizes into a charmed baryon. With this assumption, the ${\Lambda }_c$ momentum spectrum would indicate that the transition $B\to {\Lambda }_{c}X$ is dominated by multi-body $B$ decays. However, a closer examination of the momentum spectrum reveals that the mass $m_X$ against which the ${\Lambda }_c$ is recoiling almost always satisfies $m_X\agt m_{Ξ_c}$. This fact leads us to examine the hypothesis that the production of charmed baryons in $B$ decays is in fact dominated by the underlying transition $b\to c\bar{c}s$, and is seen primarily in modes with two charmed baryons in the final state. We propose a number of tests of this hypothesis. If this mechanism is indeed important in baryon production, then there are interesting consequences and applications, including potentially important implications for the ``charm deficit'' in $B$ decays.

9 pages, 3 uuencoded figures included, uses REVTeX, preprint nos. CALT-68-1935, FERMILAB-PUB-94-132-T, JHU-TIPAC-940006, UCSD/PTH 94-06

References in corpus (1)

• The Baffling Semileptonic Branching Ratio of $B$ Mesons

Cited by in corpus (8)

• B Mesons
• Nonleptonic Decays and Lifetimes of b-quark and c-quark Hadrons
• Inconclusive Inclusive Nonleptonic $B$ Decays
• The Chromomagnetic Dipole Operator and the B Semileptonic Branching Ratio
• Heavy Baryon Production and Decay
• Observation of B^+ -> \barΞ_c^0Λ_c^+ and Evidence for B^0 -> \barΞ_c^-Λ_c^+
• First Observation of Inclusive $B$ Decays to the Charmed Strange Baryons ${\Xi }_c^0$ and ${\Xi }_c^{+}$
• Study of Semileptonic Decays of B Mesons to Charmed Baryons