Non Leptonic Heavy Hadron Decays and Local Duality

Abstract

We discuss local duality for weak non leptonic B and Lambda_b decays in the m_b -> infinity limit under the hypothesis of factorization and in the Shifman-Voloshin limit. We show that, under these hypotheses, local duality holds for the first two terms in the 1/m_b expansion and at the order alpha_s in the perturbative expansion. The possible relevance of these results for the operator product expansion evaluation of the b-hadron lifetimes is discussed.

15 pages, LaTeX, one reference added, to appear in Phys. Lett. B