The discovery and properties of pentaquarks

The pentaquarks are exotic baryons formed of four quarks and an antiquarks. Their existence has been discussed in the literature over the last 30 years or more, first in connection with kaon nucleon scattering data. The subject has been revived by the end of 2002 when experimental evidence of a narrow baryon of strangeness $S$ = + 1, and mass $M \simeq$ 1530 MeV has been found. This is interpreted as the lightest member of an SU(3)-flavor antidecuplet. Here we shall mainly review the predictions of pentaquark properties as e.g. mass, spin and parity, within constituent quark models. Both light and heavy pentaquarks will be presented.Comment: Plenary talk, MESON2004 Conference Proceedings, Crakow, June 4-8 200

Mass formula for strange baryons in large NcN_c QCD versus quark model

A previous work establishing a connection between a quark model, with relativistic kinematics and a $Y$-confinement plus one gluon exchange, and the $1/N_c$ expansion mass formula is extended to strange baryons. Both methods predict values for the SU(3)-breaking mass terms which are in good agreement with each other. Strange and nonstrange baryons are shown to exhibit Regge trajectories with an equal slope, but with an intercept depending on the strangeness. Both approaches agree on the value of the slope and of the intercept and on the existence of a single good quantum number labeling the baryons within a given Regge trajectory.Comment: 2 figure

On a three-body confinement force in hadron spectroscopy

Recently it has been argued that a three-body colour confinement interaction can affect the stability condition of a three-quark system and the spectrum of a tetraquark described by any constituent quark model. Here we discuss the role of a three-body colour confinement interaction in a simple quark model and present some of its implications for the spectra of baryons, tetraquarks and six-quark systems.Comment: 19 pages (RevTeX), addition of new material regarding the NN interaction, more accurate discussion of the baryonic case, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

New Baryons in the Delta eta and Delta omega Channels

The decays of excited nonstrange baryons into the final states Delta eta and Delta omega are examined in a relativized quark pair creation model. The wavefunctions and parameters of the model are fixed by previous calculations of N pi and N pi pi, etc., decays through various quasi-two body channels including N eta and N omega. Our results show that the combination of thresholds just below the region of interest and the isospin selectivity of these channels should allow the discovery of several new baryons in such experiments.Comment: 10 pages, RevTe

Food security and migration in Africa: A validation of theoretical links using case studies from literature

The connection between food security and migration is increasingly discussed by both international agencies and academic literature. However, despite several improvements, we continue to know little about the complex causal-effect relations that link these aspects and, in particular, how much migration patterns are affected by food security issues and how much, as a feedback, migration can affect food security, on both the origin and destination areas. This paper aims firstly to draw a general framework of this nexus and then to validate it using empirical literature on the African continent. A few common points can be emphasized for the continent: due to structural and familiar characteristics, different strategies based on opportunity costs or risk minimization (including food security aspects) may emerge; individuals often migrate following household strategies; multi-nodal households are emerging; land grabbing and land tenure security represent important drivers to be considered; emergencies or critical situations often cause the erosion of women rights. In many situations, the poverty trap prevents most food insecure households to leave marginal lands

Pentaquarks in string dynamics

The masses of $uudd\bar s$, $uudd\bar d$, and $uuss\bar d$ pentaquarks are evaluated in a framework of both the Effective Hamiltonian approach to QCD and spinless Salpeter using the Jaffe-Wilczek diquark approximation and the string interaction for the diquark-diquark-antiquark system. The masses of the light pentaquarks are found to be in the region above 2 GeV. The similar calculations yield the mass of $[ud]^2\bar c$ pentaquark $\sim$ 3250 MeV and $[ud]^2\bar b$ pentaquark $\sim$ 6509 MeV.Comment: 5 pages. Based on talk by I.M.Narodetskii at BEACH 2004, 6th International Conference on Hyperons, Charm and Beauty Hadrons, Illionois Institute of Technology, Chicago, June. 27 - July 3, 2004. Typos correcte