Issues in Heavy Flavour Baryons

Abstract

I present a mini-review on the physics of heavy flavour baryons where I concentrate on the HQET description of their exclusive decay modes. In particular I discuss the structure of current-induced bottom baryon to charm baryon transitions, and the structure of pion and photon transitions between heavy charm or bottom baryons in the Heavy Quark Symmetry limit as m_Q->\infty. The emphasis is on the structural similarity of the Heavy Quark Symmetry predictions for the three types of transitions. The requisite coupling expressions are discussed both in the covariant framework as well as in terms of Clebsch-Gordan coefficients and 6-j symbols. At the end of my review I touch on some unresolved issues in exclusive nonleptonic charm and bottom baryon decays which serve to highlight our present lack of understanding of nonleptonic heavy baryon decays.