# Novel ideas in nonleptonic decays of double heavy baryons

## TL;DR

This paper reviews recent experimental and theoretical advances in the nonleptonic decays of double heavy baryons, introducing new methods to calculate W-exchange contributions and emphasizing their significance in understanding baryon decay dynamics.

## Contribution

The authors propose novel ideas using the compositeness condition and infrared confinement to calculate W-exchange matrix elements in double heavy baryon decays, highlighting their importance.

## Key findings

- W-exchange contributions are comparable to tree-level diagrams.
- New calculational methods for W-exchange diagrams are developed.
- Certain decay processes are dominated solely by W-exchange diagrams.

## Abstract

The recent discovery of double charm baryon states by the LHCb Collaborarion and their high precision mass determination calls for a comprehensive analysis of the nonleptonic decays of double and single heavy baryons. Nonleptonic baryon decays play an important role in particle phenomenology since they allow to study the interplay of long and short distance dynamics of the Standard Model (SM). Further, they allow one to search for New Physics effects beyond the SM. We review recent progress in experimental and theoretical studies of the nonleptonic decays of heavy baryons with a focus on double charm baryon states and their decays. In particular, we discuss new ideas proposed by the present authors to calculate the $W$-exchange matrix elements of the nonleptonic decays of double heavy baryons. An important ingredient in our approach is the compositeness condition of Salam and Weinberg, and an effective implementation of infrared confinement both of which allow one to describe the nonperturbative structure of baryons composed of light and heavy quarks. Further we discuss an ab initio calculational method for the treatment of the so-called $W$-exchange diagrams generated by $W^{\pm}$ boson exchange between quarks. We found that the $W^{\pm}$-exchange contributions are not suppressed in comparison with the tree-level (factrorizing) diagrams and must be taken into account in the evaluation of matrix elements. Moreover, there are decay processes such as the doubly Cabibbo-suppressed decay $\Xi_c^+ \to p \phi$ recently observed by the LHCb Collaboration which is contributed to only by one single $W$-exchange diagram.