Study of semileptonic and nonleptonic decays of the Bc−B_c^- meson

We evaluate semileptonic and two--meson nonleptonic decays of the $B_c^-$ meson in the framework of a nonrelativistic quark model. The former are done in spectator approximation using one--body current operators at the quark level. Our model reproduces the constraints of heavy quark spin symmetry obtained in the limit of infinite heavy quark mass. For the two--meson nonleptonic decays we work in factorization approximation. We compare our results to the ones obtained in different relativistic approaches.Comment: Talk given at the IVth International Conference on Quarks an Nuclear Physics, Madrid, June 5th-10th 200

Masses and semileptonic decays of doubly heavy baryons in a nonrelativistic quark model

We evaluate masses and semileptonic decay widths for the ground state of doubly heavy $\Xi$ and $\Omega$ baryons in the framework of a nonrelativistic quark model. We solve the three-body problem by means of a variational ansatz made possible by heavy-quark spin symmetry constraints. Our masses are comparable to the ones obtained in relativistic calculations and we get one of the best agreements with lattice data. Our simple wave functions are used to evaluate semileptonic decays of doubly heavy $\Xi, \Xi'(J=1/2)$ and $\Omega, \Omega'(J=1/2)$ baryons. Our results for the decay widths are in reasonable agreement with calculations done in a relativistic calculation in the quark-diquark approximation. We also check that our wave functions comply with what it is expected in the infinite heavy quark mass limit.Comment: 3 latex pages, two tables. To appear in the INPC07 proceeding

Masses and semileptonic decays of doubly heavy baryons in a nonrelativistic quark model

We evaluate masses and semileptonic decay widths for the ground state of doubly heavy $\Xi$ and $\Omega$ baryons in the framework of a nonrelativistic quark model. We solve the three-body problem by means of a variational ansatz made possible by heavy-quark spin symmetry constraints. Our masses are comparable to the ones obtained in relativistic calculations and we get one of the best agreements with lattice data. Our simple wave functions are used to evaluate semileptonic decays of doubly heavy $\Xi, \Xi'(J=1/2)$ and $\Omega, \Omega'(J=1/2)$ baryons. Our results for the decay widths are in reasonable agreement with calculations done in a relativistic calculation in the quark-diquark approximation. We also check that our wave functions comply with what it is expected in the infinite heavy quark mass limit.Comment: 3 latex pages, two tables. To appear in the INPC07 proceeding

Strong one-pion decay of Σc\Sigma_c, Σc∗\Sigma_c^* and Ξc∗\Xi_c^*

Working in the framework of a nonrelativistic quark model we evaluate the widths for the strong one-pion decays $\Sigma_c\to\Lambda_c \pi$, $\Sigma_c^*\to\Lambda_c \pi$ and $\Xi_c^{*}\to\Xi_c \pi$. We take advantage of the constraints imposed by heavy quark symmetry to solve the three-body problem by means of a simple variational ansatz. We use partial conservation of the axial current hypothesis to get the strong vertices from weak axial current matrix elements. Our results are in good agreement with experimental data.Comment: 3 latex pages. Contribution to the Proceedings of the Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum VII Conference (QCHS7) Ponta Delgada (PT) Sept 2-7, 200

Constraints on deviations from Λ{\Lambda}CDM within Horndeski gravity

Recent anomalies found in cosmological datasets such as the low multipoles of the Cosmic Microwave Background or the low redshift amplitude and growth of clustering measured by e.g., abundance of galaxy clusters and redshift space distortions in galaxy surveys, have motivated explorations of models beyond standard $\Lambda$CDM. Of particular interest are models where general relativity (GR) is modified on large cosmological scales. Here we consider deviations from $\Lambda$CDM+GR within the context of Horndeski gravity, which is the most general theory of gravity with second derivatives in the equations of motion. We adopt a parametrization in which the four additional Horndeski functions of time $\alpha_i(t)$ are proportional to the cosmological density of dark energy $\Omega_{DE}(t)$. Constraints on this extended parameter space using a suite of state-of-the art cosmological observations are presented for the first time. Although the theory is able to accommodate the low multipoles of the Cosmic Microwave Background and the low amplitude of fluctuations from redshift space distortions, we find no significant tension with $\Lambda$CDM+GR when performing a global fit to recent cosmological data and thus there is no evidence against $\Lambda$CDM+GR from an analysis of the value of the Bayesian evidence ratio of the modified gravity models with respect to $\Lambda$CDM, despite introducing extra parameters. The posterior distribution of these extra parameters that we derive return strong constraints on any possible deviations from $\Lambda$CDM+GR in the context of Horndeski gravity. We illustrate how our results can be applied to a more general frameworks of modified gravity models.Comment: 22 pages; 4 figures; 9 tables. The constraints have been revised to match the precision required according to the recently released hi_class pape