Discovery Potentials of Doubly Charmed Baryons

Abstract

The existence of doubly heavy flavor baryons has not been well established experimentally so far. In this Letter we systematically investigate the weak decays of the doubly charmed baryons, $Ξ_{cc}^{++}$ and $Ξ_{cc}^{+}$, which would be helpful for experimental searches for these particles. The branching fractions are studied under the factorization hypothesis for the short-distance contributions and considering the rescattering effect for the long-distance contributions which are significantly enhanced. Comparing all the decay modes, we recommend the processes of $Ξ_{cc}^{++}\to Λ_c^+K^-π^+π^+$ and $Ξ_c^+π^+$ as the first priority for experiments to search for the doubly heavy baryons.

16 pages, 3 figure, 5 tables. Version to be published in CPC