ALPs and Heavy Hadron Chiral Perturbation Theory

TL;DR

This paper develops a model-independent effective framework integrating Axion Like Particles (ALPs) into Heavy Hadron Chiral Perturbation Theory to study heavy meson decays and derive constraints on ALP couplings.

Contribution

It introduces a novel effective Lagrangian approach for ALPs within HHChiPT, enabling analysis of heavy meson decays and setting new bounds on ALP couplings.

Findings

Limits on ALP couplings are independent of ALP mass for light ALPs.

Radiative and leptonic heavy meson decays provide stringent constraints on ALPs.

The framework is suitable for studying heavy-to-heavy quark flavor transitions.

Abstract

Axion Like Particles (ALPs) belong to a well motivated class of particles which are part of a more complete UV theory. In this work, we initiate and present the inclusion of such ALPs or the conventional axions in the Heavy Hadron Chiral Perturbation Theory (HHChiPT) in a model independent effective lagrangian way. Such a framework is well suited for studying heavy to heavy quark flavour preserving transitions. For light ALPs, the limits on the ALP couplings (or their combinations) turn out to be independent of ALP mass. Radiative and leptonic decays of heavy vector mesons to corresponding heavy pseudoscalar mesons will be able to provide some of the most stringent constraints on ALPs, particularly the diagonal couplings.