Study of the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Λ</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">→</mml:mo> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>ℓ</mml:mo> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mover acce
We present the first lattice QCD determination of the Λ→N vector and axial-vector form factors, which are essential inputs for studying the semileptonic decay Λ→pℓν[over ¯]_{ℓ}. This channel provides a clean, theoretically controlled avenue for extracting the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element |V_{us}| from the baryon sector. Our analysis uses a gauge ensemble with physical light, strange, and charm quark masses and yields the most precise determination to date of the full set of transition form factors-including second-class contributions-as well as the associated couplings, radii, and the ratio of muon-to-electron decay rates, an observable sensitive to possible nonstandard scalar and tensor interactions. We compare our nonperturbative results with next-to-next-to-leading order expansions in the small parameter δ=(m_{Λ}-m_{N})/m_{Λ}≈0.16. We find that the common phenomenological approximation of neglecting the q^{2} dependence of the form factors leads to a ∼4% deviation in the decay rate. This underscores the critical importance of precise, fully nonperturbative form factor inputs for achieving the subpercent precision targets of upcoming experimental programs.
Authors
- Andreas Konstantinou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1072-7313)
- Simone Bacchio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5532-450X)
Institutions
- Cyprus Institute (CY)
- University of Cyprus (CY)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Letters
- Published
- 2025-11-10
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/bvs9-wcsj
- Primary Topic
- Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00