QCD corrections to decays of polarised charm and bottom quarks

Abstract

Distributions of charged leptons in semileptonic $\Lambda_c$ and $\Lambda_b$ decays can be used as spin analysers for the corresponding charm and bottom quarks. QCD corrections to the energy spectra of charged leptons have been given in the literature as well as the corrections to the angular dependence for polarised up-type quarks. The analogous formulae are derived also for polarised down-type quarks. These results are applied to the decays of polarised charm and bottom quarks. The corrections to the asymmetries are found to be small for charm decays. For bottom decays they exhibit a non-trivial dependence on the energy of the charged lepton.