Spin Dependent Fragmentation Functions For Baryons in a Diquark Model

Abstract

The perturbative QCD calculation of heavy quark fragmentation into a heavy meson is extended to predict fragmentation into heavy flavor baryons. This is accomplished by implementing the quark-diquark model of the baryons. Several diquark form factors are used to enable the integration over the virtual heavy quark momentum. The resulting spin independent functions for charmed quarks to fragment into charmed baryons with spin 1/2 and 3/2 are compared with recent data. Predictions are made for the spin dependent fragmentation functions as well, particularly for the functions $\hat{g}_1$ in the case of spin 1/2 baryons.