JOINT ANGULAR DECAY DISTRIBUTIONS IN EXCLUSIVE WEAK DECAYS OF HEAVY MESONS AND BARYONS

We present the results of a comprehensive analysis of the angular decay distributions occurring in the weak exclusive decays of the lowest lying charm and bottom mesons and baryons. We deal with both semileptonic and nonleptonic decays and discuss various decay channels and their subsequent cascade decay chains including lepton mass effects. In the case of baryons we include polarization effects for the parent charm or bottom baryon. We list in table form general formulae which allow one to write down the joint angular decay distributions for the cascade decays A --> B(--> b1 + ... + b(n)) + C(--> c1 + ... + c(n')) for all spin cases s(A) less-than-or-equal-to 1/2 and s(B), s(C) less-than-or-equal-to 3/2 for the prominent decays of B and C. Two examples involving meson and baryon decays are discussed in detail.