Theory of Weak Hypernuclear Decay

The weak nonmesonic decay of Lambda-hypernuclei is studied in the context of a one-meson-exchange model. Predictions are made for the decay rate, p/n stimulation ratio and the asymmetry in polarized hypernuclear decay.Comment: Standard 41 page Latex fil

Relativistic Treatment of Hypernuclear Decay

We compute for the first time the decay width of lambda-hypernuclei in a relativistic mean-field approximation to the Walecka model. Due to the small mass difference between the lambda-hyperon and its decay products---a nucleon and a pion---the mesonic component of the decay is strongly Pauli blocked in the nuclear medium. Thus, the in-medium decay becomes dominated by the non-mesonic, or two-body, component of the decay. For this mode, the lambda-hyperon decays into a nucleon and a spacelike nuclear excitation. In this work we concentrate exclusively on the pion-like modes. By relying on the analytic structure of the nucleon and pion propagators, we express the non-mesonic component of the decay in terms of the spin-longitudinal response function. This response has been constrained from precise quasielastic (p,n) measurements done at LAMPF. We compute the spin-longitudinal response in a relativistic random-phase-approximation model that reproduces accurately the quasielastic data. By doing so, we obtain hypernuclear decay widths that are considerably smaller---by factors of two or three---relative to existing nonrelativistic calculations.Comment: Revtex: 18 pages and 4 postscript figure

The Axial-Vector Current in Nuclear Many-Body Physics

Weak-interaction currents are studied in a recently proposed effective field theory of the nuclear many-body problem. The Lorentz-invariant effective field theory contains nucleons, pions, isoscalar scalar ($\sigma$) and vector ($\omega$) fields, and isovector vector ($\rho$) fields. The theory exhibits a nonlinear realization of $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R$ chiral symmetry and has three desirable features: it uses the same degrees of freedom to describe the axial-vector current and the strong-interaction dynamics, it satisfies the symmetries of the underlying theory of quantum chromodynamics, and its parameters can be calibrated using strong-interaction phenomena, like hadron scattering or the empirical properties of finite nuclei. Moreover, it has recently been verified that for normal nuclear systems, it is possible to systematically expand the effective lagrangian in powers of the meson fields (and their derivatives) and to reliably truncate the expansion after the first few orders. Here it is shown that the expressions for the axial-vector current, evaluated through the first few orders in the field expansion, satisfy both PCAC and the Goldberger--Treiman relation, and it is verified that the corresponding vector and axial-vector charges satisfy the familiar chiral charge algebra. Explicit results are derived for the Lorentz-covariant, axial-vector, two-nucleon amplitudes, from which axial-vector meson-exchange currents can be deduced.Comment: 32 pages, REVTeX 4.0 with 12pt.rtx, aps.rtx, revsymb.sty, revtex4.cls, plus 14 figures; two sentences added in Summary; two references adde