Strong decays of charmed baryons in heavy hadron chiral perturbation theory

Strong decays of charmed baryons are analyzed in the framework of heavy hadron chiral perturbation theory (HHChPT) in which heavy quark symmetry and chiral symmetry are synthesized. HHChPT works excellently for describing the strong decays of s-wave charmed baryons. For L=1 orbitally excited states, two of the unknown couplings, namely, h(2) and h(10), are determined from the resonant Lambda(+)(c)pi pi mode produced in the Lambda(c)(2593) decay and the width of Sigma(c)(2800), respectively. Predictions for the strong decays of the p-wave charmed baryon states Lambda(c)(2625), Xi(c)(2790) and Xi(c)(2815) are presented. Since the decay Lambda(c)(2593)(+)->Lambda(+)(c)pi pi receives nonresonant contributions, our value for h(2) is smaller than the previous estimates. We also discuss the first positive-parity excited charmed baryons. We conjecture that the charmed baryon Lambda(c)(2880) with is an admixture of with an ; both are L=2 orbitally excited states. The potential model suggests or for Lambda(c)(2940)(+). Measurements of the ratio of Sigma(*)(c)pi/Sigma(c)pi will enable us to discriminate the J(P) assignments for Lambda(c)(2940). We advocate that the J(P) quantum numbers of Xi(c)(2980) and Xi(c)(3077) are and , respectively. Under this J(P) assignment, it is easy to understand why Xi(c)(2980) is broader than Xi(c)(3077).