Evidence for SU(3) symmetry breaking from hyperon production

Abstract

We examine the SU(3) symmetry breaking in hyperon semileptonic decays (HSD) by considering two typical sets of quark contributions to the spin content of the octet baryons: Set-1 with SU(3) flavor symmetry and Set-2 with SU(3) flavor symmetry breaking in HSD. The quark distributions of the octet baryons are calculated with a successful statistical model. Using an approximate relation between the quark fragmentation functions and the quark distributions, we predict polarizations of the octet baryons produced in $e^+e^-$ annihilation and semi-inclusive deeply lepton-nucleon scattering in order to reveal the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the spin structure of the octet baryons. We find that the SU(3) symmetry breaking significantly affects the hyperon polarization. The available experimental data on the $\Lambda$ polarization seem to favor the theoretical predictions with SU(3) symmetry breaking. We conclude that there is a possibility to get a collateral evidence for SU(3) symmetry breaking from hyperon production. The theoretical errors for our predictions are discussed.Comment: 3 tables, 14 figure