Maximal isospin few-body systems of nucleons and $\Xi$ hyperons

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that certain maximal isospin few-body systems involving nucleons and Xi hyperons are bound and stable under strong interactions, using Yukawa-type potentials fitted to Nijmegen ESC08c data.

Contribution

The paper introduces a method to predict binding of maximal isospin nucleon-Xi systems using Yukawa interactions aligned with Nijmegen potentials, suggesting potential stability of other similar states.

Findings

$N ext{Xi}$, $NN ext{Xi}$, $N ext{Xi} ext{Xi}$, and $NN ext{Xi} ext{Xi}$ are bound in maximal isospin states.

These systems are stable under strong decay due to isospin conservation.

Potential existence of other bound states with different nucleon and Xi configurations.

Abstract

By using local central Yukawa-type interactions that reproduce the low-energy parameters of the latest updates of the Nijmegen ESC08c potentials we show that the $N\Xi$, $NN\Xi$, $N\Xi\Xi$ and $NN\Xi\Xi$ systems with maximal isospin are bound. Since in these states the strong decay $N\Xi\to\Lambda\Lambda$ is forbidden by isospin conservation, these strange few-body systems will be stable under the strong interaction. These results may suggest that other states with different number of $N$'s and $\Xi$'s in the maximal isospin channel could also be bound.