Pionic Final State Interactions and the Hypertriton Lifetime

Abstract

We analyze the contribution of pionic final state interactions (FSI) in the weak decay of the hypertriton. Focusing on the ${}^3$He channel, we find a contribution of the pionic FSI of the order of $18\%$. Assuming a fixed value for the branching ratio $R_3$ for the decay width into ${}^3$He over the decay width into ${}^3$He and $pd$ final states, we find values for the hypertriton lifetime that are consistent with the world average as well as recent measurements by the ALICE Collaboration.

Comments: 11 pages, 4 figures