Heavy baryons in the Skyrme model: the role of highly anharmonic collective motion

Thomas D. Cohen, Paul M. Hohler

Published 2007-02-19, updated 2007-06-15Version 3

In the heavy quark and large Nc limits, ordinary (exotic) heavy baryons can be considered as bound states of heavy mesons (anti-mesons)and chiral solitons. In these limits, the heavy mesons (or anti-mesons) and the chiral solitons are extremely heavy and are presumed to fall to the bottom of the effective potential. Previous studies have approximated the effective potential as harmonic about the minimum. However, when realistic masses for the heavy meson and chiral soliton are considered, longer range parts of the effective potential can become relevant. In this paper, we show that these longer-ranged effects yield effective wave functions which are qualitatively very different from those expected from the combined large Nc and heavy quark limits. These potentials can support bound heavy pentaquarks under some conditions. The consequence of these new energy states and wave functions on the Isgur-Wise function for the semileptonic decay of heavy baryons is also considered.