Nonleptonic $\Omega^{-}$ decays and the Skyrme model

Abstract

Nonleptonic $\Omega^{-}$ decay branching ratios are estimated by means of the QCD enhanced effective weak Hamiltonian supplemented by the SU(3) Skyrme model used to estimate the nonperturbative matrix elements. The model has only one free parameter, namely the Skyrme charge $e$, which is fixed through the experimental values of the octet-decuplet mass splitting $\Delta $ and the axial coupling constant $g_{A}$. The whole scheme is equivalent to that which works well for the nonleptonic hyperon decays. The ratios of calculated amplitudes are in agreement with experiment. However, the absolute values are about twice too large if short-distance corrections and only ground intermediate states are included.