Electroweak Transitions of Hyperons and Charmed Baryons: Opportunities and Prospects

Abstract

We present a phenomenology-driven overview of opportunities and outstanding challenges in baryon electroweak transitions, focusing on hyperon and charmed-baryon processes for which lattice-QCD results are available, including semileptonic decays and selected radiative, dileptonic, and neutrino-induced channels. We identify semileptonic decays of strange and charmed baryons as a particularly promising domain for synergy between phenomenology, experiment, and lattice QCD. Particular emphasis is placed on the determination of vector and axial form factors, the precision and model-independent extraction of $|V_{us}|$ from hyperon semileptonic decays including radiative corrections, and on searches for non-standard interactions through lepton-flavor- and CP-violating observables. We examine the momentum dependence of form factors in ground-state transitions, highlight the emerging $Ξ_c \to Ξ$ semileptonic puzzle stemming from tensions between lattice-QCD predictions and experimental measurements, discuss inclusive decay rates, and outline strategies for extending these studies to transitions involving excited baryon states. For completeness, we review also results involving beauty-baryon decays.