Prospects for the extraction of ∣Vcb∣{\mid}V_{cb}{\mid} from $B_c\ {\to}\ J/\psi\ {\mu}^+\ {\nu}$ decays at LHC

We discuss the possibility of extracting ${\mid}V_{cb}{\mid}$ from the future measurement at LHC of the $B_c\ {\rightarrow}\ J/\psi\ {\mu}^+\ {\nu}$ decay rate followed by the leptonic decay $J/\psi\ {\rightarrow}\ \mu^+\mu^-$. We examine in detail the influence of the measurement of the muons' momenta and vertex reconstruction in the final uncertainty of ${\mid}V_{cb}{\mid}$, as well as the required theoretical inputs at both the production and weak decay level, and their reliability in this regard. We stress the relevance of a rigorous description of the fragmentation contributions to inclusive production at large transverse momentum of heavy quarkonia in $pp$ collisions.Comment: Latex using psfig.sty, 19 pages including 9 uuencoded. Replaced because of a few missprint error

Bottomonium spectroscopy with mixing of eta_b states and a light CP-odd Higgs

The mass of the eta_b(1S), measured recently by BABAR, is significantly lower than expected from QCD predictions for the Upsilon(1S) - eta_b(1S) hyperfine splitting. We suggest that the observed eta_b(1S) mass is shifted downwards due to a mixing with a CP-odd Higgs scalar A with a mass m_A in the range 9.4 - 10.5 GeV compatible with LEP, CLEO and BABAR constraints. We determine the resulting predictions for the spectrum of the eta_b(nS) - A system and the branching ratios into tau^+ tau^- as functions of m_A.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PRL, misprint correcte

Bethe-Salpeter equation for doubly heavy baryons in the covariant instantaneous approximation

In the heavy quark limit, a doubly heavy baryon is regarded as composed of a heavy diquark and a light quark. We establish the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) equations for the heavy diquarks and the doubly heavy baryons, respectively, to leading order in a $1/m_{Q}$ expansion. The BS equations are solved numerically under the covariant instantaneous approximation with the kernels containing scalar confinement and one-gluon-exchange terms. The masses for the heavy diquarks and the doubly heavy baryons are obtained and the non-leptonic decay widths for the doubly heavy baryons emitting a pseudo-scalar meson are calculated within the model.Comment: Corrections to the text, two references added, version accepted for publication in Physical Review

Power scaling rules for charmonia production and HQEFT

We discuss the power scaling rules along the lines of a complete Heavy Quark Effective Field Theory (HQEFT) for the description of heavy quarkonium production through a color-octet mechanism. To this end, we firstly derive a tree-level heavy quark effective Lagrangian keeping both particle-antiparticle mixed sectors allowing for heavy quark-antiquark pair annihilation and creation, but describing only low-energy modes around the heavy quark mass. Then we show the consistency of using HQEFT fields in constructing four-fermion local operators a la NRQCD, to be identified with standard color-octet matrix elements. We analyze some numerical values extracted from charmonia production by different authors and their hierarchy in the light of HQEFT.Comment: LaTeX, 19 pages, 3 EPS figure

Leptonic universality breaking in Upsilon decays as a probe of new physics

In this work we examine the possible existence of new physics beyond the standard model which could modify the branching fractions of the leptonic (mainly tauonic) decays of bottomonium vector resonances below the $B\bar{B}$ threshold. The decay width is factorized as the product of two pieces: a) the probability of an intermediate pseudoscalar color-singlet $b\bar{b}$ state (coupling to the dominant Fock state of the Upsilon via a magnetic dipole transition) and a soft (undetected) photon; b) the annihilation width of the $b\bar{b}$ pair into two leptons, mediated by a non-standard CP-odd Higgs boson of mass about 10 GeV, introducing a quadratic dependence on the lepton mass in the partial width. The process would be unwittingly ascribed to the $\Upsilon$ leptonic channel thereby (slightly) breaking lepton universality. A possible mixing of the pseudoscalar Higgs and bottomonium resonances is also considered. Finally, several experimental signatures to check out the validity of the conjecture are discussed.Comment: LaTeX, 22 pages, 2 EPS figure