WEAK DECAY OF Λ–HYPERNUCLEI

The nonmesonic weak decay of L hypernuclei is studied in a shell model framework. A complete strangeness-changing weak LN!NN transition potential, based on one boson exchange, is constructed by including the exchange of the pseudoscalar mesons p, K, h as well as the vector mesons r,v, and K*, whose weak-coupling constants are obtained from soft meson theorems and SU~6! w . General expressions for nucleons in arbitrary shells are obtained. The transition matrix elements include realistic LN short-range correlations and NN final state interactions based on the Nijmegen baryon-baryon potential. The decay rates are found to be especially sensitive to the inclusion of the strange mesons K and K*…