Scattering of charmed baryons on nucleons

Abstract

Chiral effective field theory is utilized for extrapolating results on the ΛcN interaction, obtained in lattice QCD at unphysical (large) quark masses, to the physical point. The pion-mass dependence of the components that constitute the ΛcN potential up to next-to-leading order (pion-exchange diagrams and four-baryon contact terms) is fixed by information from lattice QCD simulations. No recourse to SU(3) or SU(4) flavor symmetry is made. It is found that the results of the HAL QCD Collaboration for quark masses corresponding to mπ= 410 - 570 MeV imply a moderately attractive ΛcN interaction at mπ= 138 MeV with scattering lengths of a≈ - 1 fm for the 1S0 as well as the 3S1 partial waves. For such an interaction the existence of a charmed counterpart of the hypertriton seems unlikely but four- and/or five-baryons systems with a Λc baryon could be indeed bound.