The partial decay widths of lowest lying negative parity baryons belonging to the 70-plet of SU(6) are analyzed in the framework of the 1/Nc expansion The channels considered are those with single pseudo-scalar meson emission. The analysis is carried out to sub-leading order in 1/Nc and to first order in SU(3) symmetry breaking. Conclusions about the magnitude of SU(3) breaking effects along with predictions for some unknown or poorly determined partial decay widths of known resonances are obtained.
The operator structures that can contribute to three-nucleon forces are classified in the 1/Nc expansion. At leading order in 1/Nc a spin-flavor independent term is present, as are the spin-flavor structures associated with the Fujita-Miyazawa three-nucleon force. Modern phenomenological three-nucleon forces are thus consistent with this O(Nc) leading force, corrections to which are suppressed by a power series in 1/Nc^2. A complete basis of operators for the three-nucleon force, including all independent momentum structures, is given explicitly up to next-to-leading order in the 1/Nc expansion.
Several experimental investigations have observed parity violation in nuclear systems-a consequence of the weak force between quarks. We apply the $1/N_c$ expansion of QCD to the P-violating T-conserving component of the nucleon-nucleon (NN) potential. We show there are two leading-order operators, both of which affect $vec{p}p$ scattering at order $N_c$. We find an additional four operators at $O(N_c^0 sin^2 theta_W)$ and six at $O(1/N_c)$. Pion exchange in the PV NN force is suppressed by $1/N_c$ and $sin^2 theta_W$, providing a quantitative explanation for its non-observation up to this time. The large-$N_c$ hierarchy of other PV NN force mechanisms is consistent with estimates of the couplings in phenomenological models. The PV observed in $vec{p}p$ scattering data is compatible with natural values for the strong and weak coupling constants: there is no evidence of fine tuning.
The masses of the negative parity SU(6) 70-plet baryons are analyzed in the 1/Nc expansion to order 1/Nc and to first order in SU(3) breaking. At this level of precision there are twenty predictions. Among them there are the well known Gell-Mann Okubo and equal spacing relations, and four new relations involving SU(3) breaking splittings in different SU(3) multiplets. Although the breaking of SU(6) symmetry occurs at zeroth order in 1/Nc, it turns out to be small. The dominant source of the breaking is the hyperfine interaction which is of order 1/Nc. The spin-orbit interaction, of zeroth order in 1/Nc, is entirely fixed by the splitting between the singlet states Lambda(1405) and Lambda(1520), and the spin-orbit puzzle is solved by the presence of other zeroth order operators involving flavor exchange.
We study the partial decay widths of the charmonium states ($J/psi$, $psi(3686)$, $psi(3770)$, $chi_{c0}$, $chi_{c2}$) to $Dbar D$ ($D^+D^-$ or $D^0bar {D^0}$) in isospin asymmetric nuclear matter, in the presence of strong magnetic fields. The in-medium partial decay widths of charmonium states to $Dbar D$ are calculated within a light quark--antiquark pair creation model, namely the $^3P_0$ model, using the in--medium masses of the charmonia as well as $D$ and $bar D$ mesons in the magnetized nuclear matter obtained within a chiral effective model. The presence of a magnetic field leads to Landau quantization of the energy levels of the proton in the nuclear medium. The effects of magnetic field and isospin asymmetry on the charmonium decay widths to $Dbar D$ are found to be quite prominent. The effects of the anomalous magnetic moments have also been taken into consideration for obtaining the in-medium masses of these heavy flavour mesons, used to calculate the partial decay widths of the charmonium states. The medium modifications of the charmonium decay widths can have observable consequences on the production of the charmed mesons in high energy asymmetric heavy ion collision experiments.
We apply the large-$N_c$ expansion to the time-reversal-invariance-violating (TV) nucleon-nucleon potential. The operator structures contributing to next-to-next-to-leading order in the large-$N_c$ counting are constructed. For the TV and parity-violating case we find a single operator structure at leading order. The TV but parity-conserving potential contains two leading-order terms, which however are suppressed by 1/$N_c$ compared to the parity-violating potential. Comparison with phenomenological potentials, including the chiral EFT potential in the TV parity-violating case, leads to large-$N_c$ scaling relations for TV meson-nucleon and nucleon-nucleon couplings.