Spectator effects in inclusive decays of beauty hadrons

We present a model-independent study of spectator effects, which are responsible for the lifetime differences between beauty hadrons. These effects can be parametrized in terms of hadronic matrix elements of four four-quark operators. For B mesons, the coefficients of the non-factorizable operators rum out to be much larger than those of the factorizable ones, limiting considerably the usefulness of the vacuum insertion approximation. Non-factorizable contributions to the lifetime ratio tau(B-)/tau(B-d) could naturally be of order 10-20%, and not even the sign of these contributions can be predicted at present. In the case of the Lambda(b) baryon, heavy-quark symmetry is used to reduce the number of independent matrix elements from four to two. In order to explain the large deviation from unity in the experimental result for tau(Lambda(b))/tau(B-d), it is necessary that these baryon matrix elements be much larger than those estimated in quark models. We have also reexamined the theoretical predictions for the semileptonic branching ratio of B mesons and charm counting, finding that, given the present theoretical and experimental uncertainties, there is no significant discrepancy with experiment.