Molecular charmed baryons and pentaquarks from light-meson exchange saturation

TL;DR

This paper models the spectrum of charmed baryons and pentaquarks using a light-meson exchange saturation approach, predicting new bound states and explaining observed baryons.

Contribution

It introduces a simple contact-range theory saturated by light-meson exchanges to predict and interpret charmed baryons and pentaquarks.

Findings

Predicted a series of anticharmed pentaquarks and singly-charmed baryons.

Identified bound states matching observed $\Omega_c$ baryons.

Provided a unified framework for understanding baryon-meson interactions.

Abstract

The spectrum of the $c qq$ baryons contains a few states whose nature is not clearly a three-quark composite and which might have a sizable baryon-meson component. Examples include the $\Sigma_c(2800)$ or the $\Lambda_c(2940)$. Here we explore the spectrum of two-body systems composed of a light, octet baryon and a charmed meson (or antimeson) within a simple contact-range theory in which the couplings are saturated by light-meson exchanges. This results in the prediction of a series of composite anticharmed pentaquarks ($\bar{c} q qqq $) and singly-charmed baryons ($c \bar{q} qqq $). Among the later we find $J=\tfrac{1}{2}$ $\Xi D$ and $J=\tfrac{3}{2}$ $\Xi D^*$ bound states with masses matching those of the recently observed $\Omega_c(3185)$ and $\Omega_c(3327)$ baryons.