HYPERFINE INTERACTIONS IN CHARM AND BOTTOM SYSTEMS

Hyperfine interactions in the light meson and baryon sectors are gener alized to the charm and bottom systems. It is pointed out that an atte mpt to increase the value of the wave function at the origin to accoun t for the unusual ratio of Lambda(b) to the B-0 lifetimes could spoil the good agreement among the baryon and meson hyperfine mass-splitting . Including spin effects and taking phase space differences into accou nt we predict that the decay rate of the Lambda(b) can be increased re lative to that of the B-0 meson by about 7%. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.