Weak decays of doubly heavy baryons: four-body nonleptonic decay channels

Abstract

The LHCb Collaboration announced the observation of doubly charmed baryon through $\Xi_{c c}^{++} \rightarrow \Lambda_{c}^{+} K^{-} \pi^{+} \pi^{+}$ in 2017. Since then, a series of studies of doubly heavy baryons have been presented. $\Xi_{cc}^{++}$ was discovered through nonleptonic four-body decay mode, and experimental data has indicated that the decay modes of $\Xi_{c c}^{++}$ are not saturated by two and three-body intermediate states. In this work, we analyze the four-body weak decays of doubly heavy baryons $\Xi_{cc}^{++}, \Xi_{cc}^+$, and $\Omega_{cc}^+$. Decay amplitudes for various channels are parametrized in terms of SU(3) irreducible amplitudes. We point out that branching fractions for Cabibbo-allowed processes $\Xi_{cc}^{+}\to\Lambda_c^+\pi^+ \pi^0 K^-$, $\Omega_{cc}^{+}\to\Lambda_c^+\pi^+ \overline K^0 K^-$ would be helpful to search for $\Xi_{cc}^+$ and $\Omega_{cc}^+$ in future measurements at experimental facilities like LHC, Belle II, and CEPC.