On the effect of the Delta(1232) in hypernuclear non-mesonic weak decay: a microscopic approach

TL;DR

This paper investigates the impact of the Delta(1232) resonance on hypernuclear non-mesonic weak decay using a microscopic approach, revealing its significant role in final state interactions and improving agreement with experimental nucleon spectra.

Contribution

First microscopic inclusion of the Delta(1232) resonance in hypernuclear decay calculations, enhancing the understanding of decay mechanisms and spectra.

Findings

Delta(1232) significantly affects FSI-induced decay mechanisms.

Improved agreement with experimental nucleon spectra when including Delta.

Decay rates are largely unaffected by the Delta resonance.

Abstract

The non-mesonic weak decay of $\Lambda$-hypernuclei is studied within a microscopic diagrammatic approach which includes, for the first time, the effect or the $\Delta$-baryon resonance. We adopt a nuclear matter formalism extended to finite nuclei via the local density approximation, a one-meson exchange weak transition potential, a Bonn nucleon-nucleon strong potential and a $\Delta N\to NN$ strong potential based on the Landau-Migdal theory. Ground state correlations and final state interactions (FSI), at second order in the baryon-baryon strong interaction, are introduced on the same footing for all the isospin channels of one- and two-nucleon induced decays. Weak decay rates and single and double-coincidence nucleon spectra are predicted for $^{12}_\Lambda$C and compared with recent KEK and FINUDA data. The $\Delta(1232)$ introduces new FSI-induced decay mechanisms which lead to an improvement when comparing the obtained nucleon spectra with data, while it turns out to have a negligible effect on the decay rates. Discrepancies with experiment remain only for emission spectra involving protons, but are mostly restricted to double-nucleon correlations in the non-back-to-back kinematics.