Weak decays of heavy-quark baryons

Janina Nicolini

Published 2023-05-24Version 1

Weak decays of heavy-quark baryons offer an attractive laboratory to search for effects beyond the Standard Model (SM), complementary to searches in meson decays. However, the properties of these baryons are not well understood. In particular, the $\Omega^-_b$ baryon is the least studied weakly decaying $b$ baryon. Therefore, the most precise determination of the $\Omega^{-}_{b}$ baryon mass is reported, using $\Omega^-_b \to J/\psi \Omega^-$ decays at the LHCb experiment. In addition, the relative production rate of the $\Omega^-_b$ baryon in $pp$ collisions at the LHC is determined for the first time. These quantities are crucial to predict and measure branching fractions of $\Omega^{-}_{b}$ baryon decays.