We present the outcomes of a very recent investigation of the decay constants of nonstrange and strange heavy-light beauty vector mesons, with special emphasis on the ratio of any such decay constant to the decay constant of the corresponding pseudoscalar meson, by means of Borel-transformed QCD sum rules. Our results suggest that both these ratios are below unity.
An update is given of the determination of leptonic decay constants of charm and beauty mesons in the framework of relativistic Hilbert moments and Laplace transform QCD sum rules.
We predict the spectrum of the four $1S$ and eight $1P$ nonstrange and strange states in the beauty meson family in the context of effective field theory. By the union of heavy quark effective theory and chiral perturbation theory, the mass formalisms for the heavy-light mesons are defined. Our analysis uses mass expressions involving, for the first time, the full leading self-energy corrections and leading power corrections to the heavy quark and chiral limits. The counterterms present in these expressions are fitted using available experimental and theoretical information on the charmed meso…
Using the recent measurement of the total production rate for $B_s$ and $B_s^*$ mesons in electron-positron annihilation to determine the strange quark mass parameter in the $\bar b\to B_s,\, B_s^*$ fragmentation functions we calculate the momentum distributions of the $B_s$ and $B_s^*$ mesons.
The cross sections for the production of $B_s$ and $B_s^*$ mesons through the fragmentation process in $\bar{p}p$ collisions were calculated. The input parameters were determined from the measured $B_s$ and $B_s^*$ production rates in $e^+e^-$ annihilation. The transverse momentum distributions $dσ/dp_{T}$ are given for $\sqrt{s}=1.8$ TeV, the Fermilab Tevatron energy.
The masses of $S$ and $P$ states, pseudoscalar and vector decay constants, leptonic, semileptonic decay widths of charm (D) and beauty (B) open flavour mesons have been computed in the framework of Coulomb and power potential of the form $V(r)=-\frac{α_c}{r}+A r^ν$. The results are compared with other theoretical as well as experimental results.
Using the Woods Saxon plus Coulomb type of interaction between two hadron molecules, we have calculated the binding energies and masses of the tetraquark states such as $D\bar{D}$, $D\bar{D}^*$, $D^*\bar{D}^*$, $D^+\bar{D}^*$ in the charm sector and $B\bar{B}$, $B^*\bar{B}^*$, $B\bar{B}^*$ in the bottom sector.
Applying knowledge of the interaction between heavy quarks derived from the study of $c\overline{c}$ and $b\overline{b}$ bound states, we calculate the spectrum of $c\overline{b}$ mesons. We compute transition rates for the electromagnetic and hadronic cascades that lead from excited states to the $^1\text{S}_0$ ground state, and briefly consider the prospects for experimental observation of the spectrum.
I review the properties of mesons with one heavy quark. I start by examining the predicted masses and widths in the context of the quark model and heavy quark effective theory. Some recent experimental results are described and I conclude with comments on potentially interesting future experimental studies.
A selfconsistent treatment of nonperturbative effects in inclusive nonleptonic and semileptonic decays of beauty and charm hadrons is presented. It is illustrated by calculating semileptonic branching ratios, lifetime ratios, radiative decay rates and the lepton spectra in semileptonic decays.
Recent experimental findings of several mesons and baryons with "beauty" and "charm" as flavors remind us of the days when strangeness was discovered, and how its inclusion led to SU(3)-flavor symmetry with enormous success in the classification of the "proliferated" states into SU(3) multiplets. One of the key elements was the successful application of the first order perturbation in symmetry breaking, albeit what then appeared to be huge mass differences, and the prediction of new states that were confirmed by experiments. In this note, we venture into the past and, applying the same techniq…
The $B_c ^+$ family of $(c\bar{b})$ mesons with beauty and charm is of special interest among heavy quarkonium systems. The $B_c ^+$ mesons are intermediate between $(c\bar{c})$ and $(b\bar{b})$ states both in mass and size, so many features of the $(c\bar{b})$ spectrum can be inferred from what we know of the charmonium and bottomonium systems. The unequal quark masses mean that the dynamics may be richer than a simple interpolation would imply, in part because the charmed quark moves faster in $B_c$ than in the $J/ψ$. Close examination of the $B_c ^+$ spectrum can test our understanding of t…
We investigate the decay properties of some beauty and charm mesons with a phenomenological potential model. First, we consider the nonrelativistic Hamiltonian of the mesonic system with Coulomb plus exponential terms and study the wave function and the energy of the system using the variational approach. Thereby, we compute the masses, the decay constants, the leptonic branching fractions of heavy-light mesons and the mixing mass parameter $Δ{m_{B_q}}$. We study the radiative leptonic decay widths of ${D_s} \to γ\ell \bar ν$, ${D^ - } \to γ\ell \bar ν$ and the semileptonic decay widths of ${\…
We present the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to the decay constants for both the pseudoscalar and vector beauty-charmed mesons $B_{c}$ and $B^*_{c}$ in nonrelativistic QCD effective theory. Explicit NNLO calculation verified that the $B_c$ decay constant from pseudoscalar current is identical with the $B_c$ decay constant from axial-vector current. The NNLO result for the vector decay constant of $B^*_{c}$ meson is novel. Combined with the latest extraction of nonrelativistic QCD long-distance matrix elements of $B_c$ meson, we give the branching ratios of leptonic decay…
Our recently completed analysis of the decay constants of both pseudoscalar and vector beauty mesons reveals that in the bottom-quark sector two specific features of the sum-rule predictions show up: (i) For the input value of the bottom-quark mass in the $\overline{\rm MS}$ scheme $\overline{m}_b(\overline{m}_b)\approx4.18\;\mbox{GeV},$ the sum-rule result $f_B\approx210$-$220\;\mbox{MeV}$ for the $B$ meson decay constant is substantially larger than the recent lattice-QCD finding $f_B\approx190\;\mbox{MeV}.$ Requiring QCD sum rules to reproduce the lattice-QCD value of $f_B$ yields a signifi…
At hadron colliders the dominant production mechanism of $(\bar bc)$ mesons with large transverse momentum is due to parton fragmentation. We compute the rates and transverse momentum spectra for production of S-wave and P-wave $(\bar b c)$ mesons at the Tevatron via the direct fragmentation of the bottom antiquark as well as the Altarelli-Parisi induced gluon fragmentation. Since all the radially and orbitally excited $(\bar b c)$ mesons below the $BD$ flavor threshold will cascade into the pseudoscalar ground state $B_c$ through electromagnetic and/or hadronic transitions, they all contribut…
Inclusive and exclusive decays of heavy flavours look quite different from a theoretical viewpoint. We argue that inclusive decays can be treated quantitatively and report on the calculation of the perturbative corrections to the Final State Interaction phases in connection to their impact on effects of CP violation.
I give a brief review of final state interactions in meson decays. I describe possible effects of FSI in K, D and B systems, paying particular attention to the description of the heavy meson decays. Available theoretical methods for dealing with the effects of FSI are discussed.
At the large transverse momentum region, the production of heavy-heavy bound-states such as charmonium, bottomonium, and $\bar bc$ mesons in high energy $e^+e^-$ and hadronic collisions is dominated by parton fragmentation. We calculate the heavy quark fragmentation functions into the D-wave quarkonium and $\bar bc$ mesons to leading order in the strong coupling constant and in the non-relativistic expansion. In the $\bar b c$ meson case, one set of its D-wave states is expected to lie below the open flavor threshold. The total fragmentation probability for a $\bar b$ antiquark to split into t…
We evaluate the s-wave interaction of pseudoscalar and vector mesons with both charm and beauty to investigate the possible existence of molecular $BD$, $B^*D$, $BD^*$, $B^*D^*$, $B\bar D$, $B^*\bar D$, $B\bar D^*$ or $B^* \bar D^*$ meson states. The scattering amplitude is obtained implementing unitarity starting from a tree level potential accounting for the dominant vector meson exchange. The diagrams are evaluated using suitable extensions to the heavy flavor sector of the hidden gauge symmetry Lagrangians involving vector and pseudoscalar mesons{, respecting heavy quark spin symmetry}. We…
The production rates and transverse momentum distributions of the strange-beauty mesons $B_s$ and $B_s^*$ at $p\bar p$ colliders are calculated assuming fragmentation is the dominant process. Results are given for the Tevatron in the large transverse momentum region, where fragmentation is expected to be most important.
We fit the ${\cal CKM}$-matrix to all recent data with the following free parameters: three mixing angles, the CP-violating angle $δ$ in the Maiani parametrisation, the top quark mass $m_t$, and the product $f_B{\cal B}_{\B}^{1/2}$, where $f_B$ is the $B$-meson decay parameter and ${\cal B}_{\B}$ is the bag parameter. Our fits span a contiguous region in the $(f_B{\cal B}_{\B}^{1/2},\ \cosδ)$--plane, limited by $0.117\lsim f_B{\cal B}_{\B}^{1/2}/{\rm GeV}\lsim 0.231$ and --0.95 $\lsim$ $\cosδ$ $\lsim$ 0.70. The parameters $f_B{\cal B}_{\B}^{1/2}$ and $\cosδ$ are strongly positively correlated.
We compare the numerical predictions for heavy quark production in high energy hadron collisions of the conventional QCD parton model and the $k_T$-factorization approach (semihard theory). The total production cross sections, one-particle rapidity and $p_T$ distributions as well as two-particle correlations are considered. The difference in the predictions of the two approaches is not very large, while the shapes of the distributions are slightly different.
In this work, the mass and pole residue of resonance $Y_b$ is studied by using QCD sum rules approach at finite temperature. Resonance $Y_b$ is described by a diquark-antidiquark tetraquark current, and contributions to operator product expansion are calculated by including QCD condensates up to dimension six. Temperature dependences of the mass $m_{Y_b}$ and the pole residue $λ_{Y_b}$ are investigated. It is seen that near a critical temperature $(T_c\simeq190~\mathrm{MeV})$, the values of $m_{Y_b}$ and $λ_{Y_b}$ are decreased to $87\%$, and to $44\%$ of their values at vacuum.
Our community has to apply {\em non}-perturbative QCD on different levels of flavor dynamics in strange, charm \& beauty hadrons and even for top quarks. We need {\em consistent} parameterization of the CKM matrix and describe weak decays of beauty hadrons with {\em many-body} final states. It is crucial to use the {\em Wilsonian} OPE as much as possible and discuss "duality" in the worlds of quarks and hadrons. The pole mass of heavy quarks is {\em not} well-defined on the {\em non}-perturbative level -- i.e., it is {\em not} Borel summable in total QCD. We need a novel team to combine the st…
The status of the heavy quark expansion for inclusive B decays is briefly reviewed from the perspective of confronting theory with data and of extracting the heavy quark parameters. A good agreement between properly applied theory and new precision data is observed. Some recent applications to the exclusive heavy flavor transitions are addressed. I recall the `1/2 > 3/2' paradox for the transitions into the charm P-wave states.
All the available experimental information on open charm and beauty mesons is used to classify the observed states in heavy quark doublets. The masses of some of the still unobserved states are predicted, in particular in the beauty sector. Adopting an effective Lagrangian approach based on the heavy quark and chiral symmetry, individual decay rates and ratios of branching fractions are computed, with results useful to assign the quantum numbers to recently observed charmed states which still need to be properly classified. Implications and predictions for the corresponding beauty mesons are p…
Recent progress in understanding the strong physics regime of QCD is described. The role played by condensates, particularly $q{\bar q}$, in breaking chiral symmetry and generating constituent masses for $u$ and $d$ quarks is reviewed. The influence this has on hadrons with vacuum quantum numbers is emphasised. What we know of this sector from recent data on $ϕ$-radiative decays and from $D$ decays to light hadrons is discussed. The key to further understanding is comprehensive analyses of such data, including that planned for Hall D at Jefferson Laboratory.
We predict several new bound states and resonances for B-pion, B-Kaon, and B-D S-wave elastic scattering, within the same model which was recently employed to explain the D*sJ(2317)+ meson. In the charm-nonstrange sector we find a (virtual ?) bound state close to the B-pion threshold, and moreover two nearby resonances of comparable width in the range 5.9 to 6.1 GeV. We obtain bound states B*s0(5570) in b-sbar and B*c0(6490) in bbar-c, as well as resonances at higher energies. No JP=0+ states are found at 5.6 GeV (in bbar-u/d), at 5.7 GeV (in b-sbar), or at 6.1 GeV (in bbar-c), where they are …
Recent progress in understanding the strong physics regime of QCD is described. The role played by condensates, particularly $<q{\bar q} >$, in breaking chiral symmetry and generating constituent masses for $u$ and $d$ quarks is reviewed. The influence this has on hadrons with vacuum quantum numbers is emphasised. What we know of this sector from recent experiments on $ϕ$-radiative decays and from $D$ decays to light hadrons is discussed. How we may gain a more complete understanding of this vacuum sector is outlined.
We obtain tree-level estimates of various differential branching ratios of heavy baryon decays with massive sterile neutrinos $ν_{x}$ in the final state. Heavy sterile neutrinos can be searched for in heavy baryon decays with missing mass as a signature as well as in fixed target experiments, where heavy baryon decays contribute to sterile neutrino production, with sterile neutrino decays as a signature. Generally, charmed baryons are found to be less promising than charmed mesons, in contrast to b-hadrons. In the latter case, branching ratios of beauty mesons and baryons into sterile neutrino…
The production of heavy quarks (charm and beauty) provides unique insights into the transport properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) in heavy-ion collisions. Experimentally, the nuclear modification factor ${{R}_{\rm AA}}$ and the azimuthal anisotropy coefficient ${v}_{\rm 2}$ of heavy-flavor mesons are powerful observables to study the medium-related effects, such as energy loss and collectivity, on the heavy quark propagation through the QGP evolution. The latest measurements of the prompt and non-prompt open heavy-flavor hadrons allow a systematic comparison of the transport behaviors p…
We calculate the leading order QCD fragmentation functions for the production of $P$-wave charmed beauty mesons. Long-distance effects are factored into two nonperturbative parameters: the derivative of the radial wavefunction at the origin and a second parameter related to the probability for a $(\bar b c)$ heavy quark pair that is produced in a color-octet $S$-wave state to form a color-singlet $P$-wave bound state. The four $2P$ states and those $3P$ states which lie below the $BD$ flavor threshold eventually all decay into the $1S$ ground state $B_c$ through hadronic cascades or by emittin…
The heavy quark expansion implemented through an operator product expansion provides us with a treatment of inclusive decays of beauty and charm hadrons that is genuinely derived from QCD,though it requires one additional assumption, namely that of 'local' quark-hadron duality. Subtleties in the application of factorization to hadronic expectation values are pointed out. The observed pattern in the charm lifetime ratios is reproduced in a semi-quantitative manner. The ratio $τ(Λ_b)/τ(B_d)$ cannot be pushed significantly below 0.9 -- unless one invokes a new hitherto unknown paradigm for evalua…
`Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old' Franz Kafka. In the last few years considerable progress has been achieved in our understanding of the decays of heavy flavour hadrons. One can now calculate inclusive transition rates in QCD proper through an expansion in inverse powers of the heavy flavour quark mass without recourse to phenomenological assumptions. The non-perturbative contributions are treated systematically in this way; they are found to produce corrections of order a few percent in beauty decays, i.e. typically somewhat smaller than the perturbative corrections…
The recent discovery, by the LHCb collaboration, of the $Ξ_{cc}^{++}$ doubly charmed baryon, has renewed interest in the spectroscopy of doubly heavy hadrons. Experimentally, however, searches for such states appear highly challenging. The reconstructed final states tend to involve multiple heavy flavoured (beauty or charm) hadrons, so the yield for any exclusive decay mode will be suppressed to unobservably low levels by the product of several branching fractions, each of which is typically $10^{-3}$--$10^{-2}$. Noting that decays of double beauty hadrons are the only possible source of $B_c^…
High-energy open beauty photoproduction probes the vacuum exchange at distances $\sim 1/m_b$ and detects significant corrections to the BFKL asymptotics coming from the subleading vacuum poles. We show that the interplay of leading and subleading vacuum exchanges gives rise to the cross section $σ^{b\bar b}(W)$ growing much faster than it is prescribed by the exchange of the leading pomeron trajectory with intercept $α_{\Pom}(0)-1=Δ_{\Pom}=0.4$. Our calculations within the color dipole BFKL model are in agreement with the recent determination of $σ^{b\bar b}(W)$ by the H1 collaboration. The co…
A novel observable measuring the $C\!P$ asymmetry in multi-body decays of heavy mesons, which is called the forward-backward asymmetry induced $C\!P$ asymmetry (FBI-$C\!P$A), $A_{CP}^{FB}$, is introduced. This observable has the dual advantages that 1) it can isolate the $C\!P$ asymmetry associated with the interference of the $S$- and $P$-wave amplitude from that associated with the $S$- or $P$-wave amplitude alone; 2) it can effectively almost double the statistics comparing to the conventionally defined regional $C\!P$ asymmetry. We also suggest to perform the measurements of FBI-$C\!P$A in…
We present the summary of the Working Group on lifetimes, mixing and weak mixing phases in charm and beauty mesons at the CKM 2010 workshop. In the past year or so good progress was achieved on both experimental and theoretical sides. While this yields improvement in our understanding of neutral meson mixing, further work is necessary to achieve the highest possible precision in order to investigate current hints for deviations between experiment and standard model predictions. With the recent LHC startup we see bright prospects for the near term future for huge improvements.
We calculate the process-independent fragmentation functions for a $\bar b$ antiquark to fragment into longitudinally and transversely polarized $B_c^*$ ($^3S_1$) mesons to leading order in the QCD strong coupling constant. In the special case of equal quark mass we recover previous results for the fragmentation of $c\to ψ$ and $b\toΥ$. Various spin asymmetry parameters are defined as measures of the relative population of the longitudinally and transversely polarized vector meson states. In the heavy quark mass limit $m_b \to \infty$ our polarized fragmentation functions obey heavy quark spin…
The relative magnitude of the decay constants of the pseudoscalar and vector beauty mesons poses (in contrast to the case of charmed mesons) a long-standing puzzle. We revisit this problem within the framework of our recent improvements of the QCD sum-rule formalism for relating observable properties of mesons to quantum chromodynamics and are led to conclude that the decay constants of the beauty vector mesons are undoubtedly smaller than those of their pseudoscalar counterparts.
The classification of scalar and vector mesons is reviewed within the framework of the Resonance-Spectrum Expansion (RSE). This method allows a simple and straightforward description of non-exotic meson-meson scattering, incorporating the effects of quark confinement and OZI-allowed decay in a fully nonperturbative way. Results for resonances and bound states are compared to experiment, on the basis of computed pole positions and cross sections. New predictions for open-charm and -bottom scalar mesons are presented. Concretely, observed vector states for u-ubar/d-dbar, s-sbar, c-cbar, and b-bb…
The meson-baryon coupled channel unitary approach with the local hidden gauge formalism is extended to the hidden beauty sector. A few narrow $N^*$ and $Λ^*$ resonances around 11 GeV are predicted as dynamically generated states from the interactions of heavy beauty mesons and baryons. Production cross sections of these predicted resonances in $pp$ and $ep$ collisions are estimated as a guide for the possible experimental search at relevant facilities.
We discuss two problems in the theory of heavy-quark decays: an understanding of the semileptonic branching ratio of $B$ mesons, and of the lifetime ratio $τ(Λ_b)/τ(B^0)$. We also present a model-independent study of spectator contributions to the lifetimes of beauty hadrons.
Large preasymptotic effects in beauty decays have been found using heavy-quark and SU(3) symmetry, as well as experimental data on charmed hyperons. Contrary to rather uniform beauty-meson lifetimes, a much larger spread of beauty-baryon lifetimes is predicted. However, it is highly unlikely that, theoretically, the $ τ(Λ_b)/τ(B_d^0) $ ratio, which at present deviates more than $1σ$ from the experimental result, can be lowered below 0.9.
Motivated by the recent discovery of a new tetra-quark $T_{cc}^+$ state with two charm quarks and two light quarks by LHCb collaboration, we calculate the spectroscopic parameters, namely, the mass and residues of beauty partners of $T_{cc}^+$ within QCD sum rules by using hadronic molecular $BB^*$ picture. The obtained results are compared with the predictions of different approaches in the literature.
The role lattice QCD can play in $B$ physics is surveyed. We include results for the decay constant, and discuss upcoming calculations of semileptonic form factors and neutral-meson mixing. Together with experimental measurements, these calculations can determine the unitarity triangle. Plenary talk presented at the Workshop on $B$ Physics at Hadron Accelerators, Snowmass, Colo., 21 June--2 July, 1993.
We consider a U(5)-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with flavor-dependent couplings constants obtained from quark-antiquark polarization to investigate the role of the heavy quarks for light constituent quarks and mesons. A quantum mixing, due to the different representations of the flavor group needed to defined quarks and mesons, lead to charm and beauty sea quark contributions to properties of the light quark sector. For a given fitting procedure for the parameters of the model, the charm and beauty quark effective masses are freely varied from very small values to very large values (infinite). The…
The present status of the theoretical estimates of beauty hadron lifetime ratios and of width differences and CP-violation parameters in $B_d$ and $B_s$ systems is reviewed. In the last two years accurate lattice calculations and next-to-leading order perturbative computations have improved these theoretical predictions, leading to the following updated results: τ(B^+)/τ(B_d)=1.06 +- 0.02, τ(B_s)/τ(B_d)=1.00 +- 0.01, τ(Λ_b)/τ(B_d)=0.88 +- 0.05, ΔΓ_{d}/Γ_{d} = (2.42 +- 0.59)10^{-3}, ΔΓ_{s}/Γ_{s} = (7.4 +- 2.4)10^{-2}, |(q/p)_d|-1=(2.96 +- 0.67) 10^{-4}$ and |(q/p)_s|-1=-(1.28 +- 0.28) 10^{-5}
Origins of contemporary $B$-physics. Mesons with beauty and charm. Stable tetraquarks? Flavor and the problem of identity. Top matters. Electroweak symmetry breaking and the Higgs sector. Future instruments.
We compute the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to spectator effects in the lifetime ratios of beauty hadrons. With respect to previous calculations, we take into account the non vanishing value of the charm quark mass. We obtain the predictions tau(B+)/tau(Bd) = 1.06 +- 0.02, tau(Bs)/tau(Bd)= 1.00 +- 0.01 and tau(Lambdab)/tau(Bd) = 0.90 +- 0.05, in good agreement with the experimental results. In the case of tau(Bs)/tau(Bd) and tau(Lambdab)/tau(Bd), however, some contributions, which either vanish in the vacuum insertion approximation or represent a pure NLO corrections, have not been de…
We present a selfconsistent method for treating nonperturbative effects in inclusive nonleptonic and semileptonic decays of heavy flavour hadrons. These effects give rise to powerlike corrections $\propto 1/m_Q^n\,$, $n \ge 2$ with $m_Q$ denoting the heavy quark mass.The leading correction to the semileptonic branching ratio occurs for n=2. It is expressed in terms of the vector-pseudoscalar mass splitting: $δBR\ind{sl}/BR\ind{sl} \simeq BR\ind{nl}\, \cdot \,6\,(\,(M_V^2-M_P^2)/m_Q^2)\cdot (c_+^2 - c_-^2)/2N_c$ and yields a {\it reduction} of $BR\ind{sl}$. This nonperturbative correction contr…
We present the first study of $N_f=2+1+1+1$ lattice QCD with domain-wall quarks. The $(b, c, s)$ quarks are physical, while the $(u, d)$ quarks are heavier than their physical masses, with the pion mass $ \sim 700 $ MeV. The gauge ensemble is generated by hybrid Monte Carlo simulation with the Wilson gauge action for the gluons, and the optimal domain-wall fermion action for the quarks. Using point-to-point quark propagators, we measure the time-correlation functions of quark-antiquark meson interpolators with quark contents $\bar b b$, $\bar b c$, $\bar b s$, and $ \bar c c$, and obtain the m…
A critical review of the theoretical understanding of the lifetimes of beauty hadrons is given. A model-independent analysis using the heavy-quark expansion allows for a description of the lifetime ratios tau(B-)/tau(B0) and tau(Lambda_b)/tau(B0) in a small region of parameter space. It is demonstrated that the lifetime ratio tau(B-)/tau(B0) cannot be used to extract the decay constant of the B meson. Implications for the semileptonic branching ratio and charm yield in B decays are pointed out.
Inclusive heavy-flavour decays can be described through $1/m_Q$ expansions derived from QCD with the help of an operator product expansion. I sketch their methodology and apply them first to semileptonic B decays; $|V(cb)|$ can be extracted from $Γ_{SL}(B)$ and $\bar B \to l νD^*$ with the result: $|V(cb)|_{incl} = 0.0413 \pm 0.0016_{exp} \pm 0.002_{theor}$, $|V(cb)|_{excl} = 0.0377 \pm 0.0016_{exp} \pm 0.002_{theor}$. The lifetimes of charm and beauty hadrons are discussed. The charm lifetimes are predicted/reproduced as well as could be expected. Predictions on B meson lifetimes agree with a…