Non-mesonic weak decay of hypernuclei with effective field theory

Abstract

The ΛN → NN interaction, the main responsible for the decay of heavy hypernuclei, is described within the effective field theory (EFT) framework. The EFT is developed up to (2), where is the transferred momentum between the interacting baryons. Numerical values for the leading order low-energy constants are obtained by two means. First, from a fit to the hypernuclear decay observables, and second, by comparing the EFT to the one-meson-exchange model describing the same interaction. All the two-pion exchange diagrams entering at the next-to-leading in the EFT have been calculated.