2026/07/20 by Xuan Luo, Shu-Wei Zhang, Hua-Xing Chen +1
#hep-ph
Recent precision measurements of excited heavy baryons, combined with systematic theoretical studies, make it possible to resolve the fine structure of their spectra. We calculate the masses and strong-decay properties of the P-wave charmed baryons using QCD sum rules and light-cone sum rules within heavy quark effective theory (HQET). Although seven states are allowed in each flavor sector, we find that only four Σc, four Ξc^′, and five Ωc states are expected to be experimentally resolvable. The similar mass-splitting patterns of Ξc(2882), Ξc(2923), Ξc(2939), and Ξc(2965) and of Ωc(3000), Ωc(3050), Ωc(3066), and Ωc(3090), together with our theoretical results, lead to the successive quantum-number assignments JP=1/2-,3/2-,3/2-, and 5/2-. We tentatively interpret Ωc(3119) as a predominantly ρ-mode excitation with JP=3/2-. We also predict the masses, widths, and dominant decay modes of four resolvable P-wave Σc states, which may overlap within the observed Σc(2800) and Σc(2900) structures. Precision spectroscopy of the narrow Ξc and Ωc states thus provides a route to resolving the P-wave Σc spectrum.