On the form factors of semileptonic baryon decays in Heavy Quark Effective Theory

Abstract

We study consequences of the non-forward amplitude for the semileptonic baryon decay Lambda_b into Lambda_c which will be measured in detail at LHCb. We obtain a sum rule for the subleading elastic Isgur-Wise (IW) function A(w) that originates from the kinetic part of the O(1/mQ) effective Lagrangian perturbation. In the sum rule appear only the intermediate states J^P=1/2+, the same that contribute to the O(1/mQ)^2 correction to the axial-vector form factor G1(w) involved in the differential decay rate at zero recoil w=1. This allows us to obtain a lower bound on the correction -delta^(G1)_(1/mQ^2) in terms of A(w) and the shape of the leading elastic IW function xi(w). Another theoretical implication is that A'(1) must vanish in the limit where the slope of the xi(w) saturates its lower bound. A strong correlation between the leading IW function and the subleading one A(w) is thus established in the case of the baryons.