On the four-zero texture of quark mass matrices and its stability

We carry out a new study of quark mass matrices $M^{}_{\rm u}$ (up-type) and $M^{}_{\rm d}$ (down-type) which are Hermitian and have four zero entries, and find a new part of the parameter space which was missed in the previous works. We identify two more specific four-zero patterns of $M^{}_{\rm u}$ and $M^{}_{\rm d}$ with fewer free parameters, and present two toy flavor-symmetry models which can help realize such special and interesting quark flavor structures. We also show that the texture zeros of $M^{}_{\rm u}$ and $M^{}_{\rm d}$ are essentially stable against the evolution of energy scales in an analytical way by using the one-loop renormalization-group equations.Comment: 33 pages, 4 figures, minor comments added, version to appear in Nucl. Phys.

The effective neutrino mass of neutrinoless double-beta decays: how possible to fall into a well

If massive neutrinos are the Majorana particles and have a normal mass ordering, the effective mass term $\langle m\rangle^{}_{ee}$ of a neutrinoless double-beta ($0\nu 2\beta$) decay may suffer significant cancellations among its three components and thus sink into a decline, resulting in a "well" in the three-dimensional graph of $|\langle m\rangle^{}_{ee}|$ against the smallest neutrino mass $m^{}_1$ and the relevant Majorana phase $\rho$. We present a new and complete analytical understanding of the fine issues inside such a well, and discover a novel threshold of $|\langle m\rangle^{}_{ee}|$ in terms of the neutrino masses and flavor mixing angles: $|\langle m\rangle^{}_{ee}|^{}_* = m^{}_3 \sin^2\theta^{}_{13}$ in connection with $\tan\theta^{}_{12} = \sqrt{m^{}_1/m^{}_2}$ and $\rho =\pi$. This threshold point, which links the {\it local} minimum and maximum of $|\langle m\rangle^{}_{ee}|$, can be used to signify observability or sensitivity of the future $0\nu 2\beta$-decay experiments. Given current neutrino oscillation data, the possibility of $|\langle m\rangle^{}_{ee}| < |\langle m\rangle^{}_{ee}|^{}_*$ is found to be very small.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, version to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

Weak decays of doubly heavy baryons: the 1/2→3/21/2\to3/2 case

As a continuation of our previous works, we investigate the weak decays of doubly heavy baryons into a spin-$3/2$ singly or doubly heavy baryon. Light-front approach is adopted to handle the dynamics in the transitions, in which the two spectator quarks are approximated as a diquark. Results for form factors are then used to calculate decay widths of semi-leptonic and nonleptonic processes. The flavor SU(3) symmetry and symmetry breaking effects in semi-leptonic decays modes are explored, and we point out that in charm sector, there are sizable symmetry breaking effects. For nonleptonic decay modes, we study only the factorizable channels induced by the external W-emission. We find that branching fractions for most 1/2 to 3/2 transitions are approximately one order of magnitude smaller than the corresponding ones for the 1/2 to 1/2 transitions. Parametric uncertainties are also investigated in detail. This work, together with our previous works, are beneficial to the experimental studies of doubly heavy baryons at LHC and other experiments.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figure

Revisiting the four-quark operator matrix elements for the lifetime of Λb\Lambda_{b}

Heavy quark expansion can nicely explain the lifetime of $\Lambda_{b}$. However, there still exsit sizable uncertainties from the four-quark operator matrix elements in the power of $1/m_{b}^{3}$. In this work, the leading order results of the four-quark operator matrix elements $\langle\Lambda_{b}|(\bar{b}q)_{V-A}(\bar{q}b)_{V-A}|\Lambda_{b}\rangle$ and $\langle\Lambda_{b}|(\bar{b}b)_{V-A}(\bar{q}q)_{V-A}|\Lambda_{b}\rangle$ are obtained using full QCD sum rules. Contributions from dimension-0,3,5 are considered. It turns out that the contributions from dimension-3,5 are proportional to the mass of $u/d$ quark. Stable Borel region can be found, and for this reason, the uncertainties caused by the QCD sum rule parameters are small. The leading logarithmic corrections are also considered, which turn out to be a little destructive. Our results are close to the lower bound of the existing theoretical predictions.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Weak Decays of Doubly Heavy Baryons: the 1/2→1/21/2\to 1/2 case

Very recently, the LHCb collaboration has observed in the final state $\Lambda_c^+ K^-\pi^+\pi^+$ a resonant structure that is identified as the doubly-charmed baryon $\Xi_{cc}^{++}$. Inspired by this observation, we investigate the weak decays of doubly heavy baryons $\Xi_{cc}^{++}$, $\Xi_{cc}^{+}$, $\Omega_{cc}^{+}$, $\Xi_{bc}^{(\prime)+}$, $\Xi_{bc}^{(\prime)0}$, $\Omega_{bc}^{(\prime)0}$, $\Xi_{bb}^{0}$, $\Xi_{bb}^{-}$ and $\Omega_{bb}^{-}$ and focus on the decays into spin $1/2$ baryons in this paper. At the quark level these decay processes are induced by the $c\to d/s$ or $b\to u/c$ transitions, and the two spectator quarks can be viewed as a scalar or axial vector diquark. We first derive the hadronic form factors for these transitions in the light-front approach and then apply them to predict the partial widths for the semi-leptonic and non-leptonic decays of doubly heavy baryons. We find that a number of decay channels are sizable and can be examined in future measurements at experimental facilities like LHC, Belle II and CEPC.Comment: 40 pages, 4 figures, to appear in EPJ