Properties of charmed and bottom hadrons in nuclear matter: A plausible study

Changes in properties of heavy hadrons with a charm or a bottom quark are studied in nuclear matter. Effective masses (scalar potentials) for the hadrons are calculated using quark-meson coupling model. Our results also suggest that the heavy baryons containing a charm or a bottom quark will form charmed or bottom hypernuclei, which was first predicted in mid 70's. In addition a possibility of $B^-$-nuclear bound (atomic) states is briefly discussed.Comment: Latex, 11 pages, 3 figures, text was expanded substantially, version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Λc+\Lambda^+_c- and Λb\Lambda_b-hypernuclei

$\Lambda^+_c$- and $\Lambda_b$-hypernuclei are studied in the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model. Comparisons are made with the results for $\Lambda$-hypernuclei studied in the same model previously. Although the scalar and vector potentials felt by the $\Lambda$, $\Lambda_c^+$ and $\Lambda_b$ in the corresponding hypernuclei multiplet which has the same baryon numbers are quite similar, the wave functions obtained, e.g., for $1s_{1/2}$ state, are very different. The $\Lambda^+_c$ baryon density distribution in $^{209}_{\Lambda^+_c}$Pb is much more pushed away from the center than that for the $\Lambda$ in $^{209}_\Lambda$Pb due to the Coulomb force. On the contrary, the $\Lambda_b$ baryon density distributions in $\Lambda_b$-hypernuclei are much larger near the origin than those for the $\Lambda$ in the corresponding $\Lambda$-hypernuclei due to its heavy mass. It is also found that level spacing for the $\Lambda_b$ single-particle energies is much smaller than that for the $\Lambda$ and $\Lambda^+_c$.Comment: Latex, 14 pages, 4 figures, text was extended, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Nucleon and hadron structure changes in the nuclear medium and impact on observables

We review the effect of hadron structure changes in a nuclear medium using the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model, which is based on a mean field description of non-overlapping nucleon (or baryon) bags bound by the self-consistent exchange of scalar and vector mesons. This approach leads to simple scaling relations for the changes of hadron masses in a nuclear medium. It can also be extended to describe finite nuclei, as well as the properties of hypernuclei and meson-nucleus deeply bound states. It is of great interest that the model predicts a variation of the nucleon form factors in nuclear matter. We also study the empirically observed, Bloom-Gilman (quark-hadron) duality. Other applications of the model include subthreshold kaon production in heavy ion collisions, D and D-bar meson production in antiproton-nucleus collisions, and J/Psi suppression. In particular, the modification of the D and D-bar meson properties in nuclear medium can lead to a large J/Psi absorption cross section, which explains the observed J/Psi suppression in relativistic heavy ion collisions.Comment: 143 pages, 77 figures, references added, a review article accepted in Prog. Part. Nucl. Phy