1/Nc Countings in Baryons: Mixings and Decays

Based on a valence-quark picture of large Nc baryons, I describe in some detail the 1/Nc power counting for decays and spin-flavor configuration mixings in baryons.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, 2 table

Soft Pion Emission in Semileptonic BB-Meson Decays

An analysis of semileptonic decays of $B$ mesons with the emission of a single soft pion is presented in the framework of the heavy-quark limit using an effective Lagrangian which implements chiral and heavy-quark symmetries. The analysis is performed at leading order of the chiral and inverse heavy mass expansions. In addition to the ground state heavy mesons some of their resonances are included. The estimates of the various effective coupling constants and form factors needed in the analysis are obtained using a chiral quark model. As the main result, a clear indication is found that the $0^{+}$ and $1^{+}$ resonances substantially affect the decay mode with a $D^{\ast}$ in the final state, and a less dramatic effect is also noticed in the $D$ mode. An analysis of the decay spectrum in the $D^{(\ast)}-\pi$ squared invariant mass is carried out, showing the main effects of including the resonances. The obtained rates show promising prospects for studies of soft pion emission in semileptonic $B$-meson decays in a $B$-meson factory where, modulo experimental cuts, about $10^5$ such decays in the $D$ meson mode and $10^4$ in the $D^{\ast}$ mode could be observed per year.Comment: 41 pages, uses revtex, epsf. 16 uuencoded postscript figures appended after `\end{document

Decays of Non-Strange Positive Parity Excited Baryons in the 1/Nc Expansion

The decays of non-strange positive parity excited baryons via emission of a pseudo-scalar meson are studied in the framework of the 1/Nc expansion to order 1/Nc. In particular, the pionic decays of the l=0 Roper baryons and of the l=2 baryons in the mass interval 1680-1950 MeV are analyzed using the available partial decay widths. Decay widths by emission of an eta meson are shown to be suppressed by a factor 1/Nc^2 with respect to the pionic ones.Comment: 16 pages, 8 table

QCD condensates and holographic Wilson loops for asymptotically AdS spaces

The minimization of the Nambu-Goto action for a surface whose contour defines a circular Wilson loop of radius a placed at a finite value of the coordinate orthogonal to the boundary is considered. This is done for asymptotically AdS spaces. The condensates of even dimension $n=2$ through $10$ are calculated in terms of the coefficient of $a^{n}$ in the expansion of the on-shell subtracted Nambu-Goto action for small $a$ The subtraction employed is such that it presents no conflict with conformal invariance in the AdS case and need not introduce an additional infrared scale for the case of confining geometries. It is shown that the UV value of the condensates is universal in the sense that they only depends on the first coefficients of the difference with the AdS case.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur

1/Nc Countings in Baryons

The $1/N_c$ power countings for baryon decays and configuration mixings are determined by means of a non-relativistic quark picture. Such countings are expected to be robust under changes in the quark masses, and therefore valid as these become light. It is shown that excited baryons have natural widths of ${\cal{O}}(N_c^0)$. These dominant widths are due to the decays that proceed directly to the ground state baryons, with cascade decays being suppressed to ${\cal{O}}(1/N_c)$. Configuration mixings, defined as mixings between states belonging to different $O(3)\times SU(2 N_f)$ multiplets, are shown to be sub-leading in an expansion in $1/\sqrt{N_c}$ when they involve the ground state baryons, while the mixings between excited states can be ${\cal{O}}(N_c^0)$.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure An omission that changes the conclusions on configuration mixings has been correcte

Global analysis of the negative parity non-strange baryons in the 1/Nc expansion

A global study of the negative parity non-strange baryon observables is performed in the frame- work of the 1/Nc expansion. Masses, partial decay widths and photo-couplings are simultaneously analyzed. A main objective is to determine the composition of the spin 1/2 and 3/2 nucleon states, which come in pairs and involve two mixing angles which can be determined and tested for consistency by the mentioned observables. The issue of the assignment of those nucleon states to the broken SU(4) x O(3) mixed-symmetry multiplet is studied in detail, with the conclusion that the assignment made in the old studies based on the non-relativistic quark model is the preferred one. In addition, the analysis involves an update of the input data with respect to previous works.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figure