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# On the quiescence of the Hubble flow in the vicinity of the Local Group

## 1 Introduction

In his classical paper Sandage (Sandage86 (1986)) studied the perturbation of the very nearby velocity field using the available distances to local galaxies, mostly obtained by ground-based observations of brightest resolved stars and Cepheids. He concluded that the deviation from the linear Hubble flow possibly was detected at very small distances, while the quiet, linear Hubble law starts at about 2 Mpc. He pointed out the remarkable properties of the local velocity field: 1) The linearity of the velocity-distance relation down to small distances, 2) the closeness of the local and global rates of expansion, and 3) the small velocity dispersion around the Hubble law. He also asked what happens when the distances become more accurate, in particular, will the velocity dispersion still decrease below $`\sigma _v=60\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ which he derived from those data. We also note that Karachentsev & Makarov (Kara96 (1996)) found that by using both massive and small galaxies the velocity dispersion in the local volume is $`\sigma _v=72\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

The aim of our Letter is to use new accurate data on the distances of nearby galaxies inferred for the extragalactic Cepheid $`PL`$-relation (cf. Sect. 2) in order to study further the behaviour of the Hubble law in the outskirts of the Local Group.

## 2 The sample

We make use of the the Lyon Extragalactic Cepheid Database (Lanoix et al. 1999b ). In this database there are 32 galaxies with both V and I band photometry. 23 galaxies have Cepheid measurement from the HST and rest have groundbased measurements. The $`PL`$ relation was calibrated using a sample of galactic Cepheids measured with the astrometric HIPPARCOS satellite (Lanoix et al. 1999a ) and corrected for a Malmquist-like bias according to Lanoix et al. (1999c ).

As we are interested in the very local velocity field we restricted our sample by requiring $`R_{\mathrm{gal}}7\mathrm{Mpc}`$, where also the Virgo-centric flow correction is small. $`R_{\mathrm{gal}}`$ refers to the distance in Mpc measured from Galaxy. We were left with 14 galaxies. The Virgo flow at larger distances was studied with Cepheid-based distances in Ekholm et al. (1999a ).

In Table 1 we present the data relevant for the present analysis. In column 1 we give the PGC number and in column 2 we give the name. In column 3 we give the distance in Mpc as calculated from the distance moduli provided in the Lyon Extragalactic Cepheid Database. In column 4 we give the distance in Mpc as seen from the barycentre of the Local Group. In columns 5-7 we give the velocities: $`V_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the mean heliocentric velocity extracted from LEDA (the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database), $`V_{\mathrm{Yahil}}`$ is $`V_{\mathrm{}}`$ corrected for the centroid of the Local Group according to Yahil (Yahil77 (1977)) and $`V_{\mathrm{corr}}`$ is $`V_{\mathrm{Yahil}}`$ corrected for the virgocentric motion. We explain these corrections in the next section. As regards uncertainties in the parameters we note that the mean error for $`V_{\mathrm{}}`$ is $`6.4\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. In Fig. 1 we plot the error bars reflecting the uncertainties in the Cepheid distances.

Finally we remind that LMC and NGC6822 belong to the Milky Way subsystem and NGC598 (M33) is a member of the M31 subsystem. The status of the irregular galaxy IC1613 is unclear. Gurzadian et al. (Gurzadian93 (1993)) and Rauzy & Gurzadian (Rauzy98 (1998)) link it with the Galaxy, but van den Bergh (vdBergh99 (1999)) recognizes that IC1613 may be a free-floating member of the Local Group. Thus it is wise to consider it as a special case in our diagrams.

## 3 The method

To study the local Hubble flow at smaller distances, it becomes increasingly important to make relevant corrections to distances and radial velocities. The first correction, discussed by Sandage (1986), is due to the shift of the observer to the centre of expansion, which in the self-gravitating Local Group is not in our Galaxy, but presumably in the barycentre. By assuming the mass ratio of M31 and Galaxy is $`M_{M31}/M_G2`$ Sandage set the barycentre to be on the line between M31 and Galaxy at 2/3 of the distance to M31. This is also our choice. We denote the distance from the barycentre by $`R_{2/3}`$.

The observed mean heliocentric velocities must also be corrected. We first correct the observed velocity to the value as it would be measured by an observer in our Galaxy being at rest relative to the centroid of the Local Group111 We note that the observer at the centroid would measure a slightly different velocity, depending on the location of the galaxy and the nature of the velocity field close to the Local Group. For example, if the deviation of the velocity field from the Hubble flow is exactly spherically symmetric relative to the centroid, one may show by starting from the first principles of the Hubble velocity field that then the observer at the centroid would see the velocity $`V_{\mathrm{Yahil}}/\mathrm{cos}\theta `$. $`\theta `$ is the angle between the centroid and the Galaxy as seen from the measured galaxy. In the present case, $`\theta `$ is normally quite small. Hence such a correction makes the velocity usually only $`1`$-$`5\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ larger for our field galaxies. We prefer here to use the simpler velocity correction as done by Sandage (Sandage86 (1986)).. This we do according to Yahil et al. (Yahil77 (1977)), which is also the preferred choice in the LEDA database. We also remind that in Ekholm et al. (1999a ) the correction was also made according to Richter et al. (Richter87 (1987)) but difference to the correction of Yahil et al. (Yahil77 (1977)) was quite small. The velocity correction used in reads:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }v=295.4\mathrm{sin}l\mathrm{cos}b79.1\mathrm{cos}l\mathrm{cos}b37.6\mathrm{sin}b.$$
(1)
After the solar motion is thus corrected for, the infall to the Virgo Supercluster is the next disturbance. We correct the radial velocity for the virgocentric motion following Ekholm et al. (1999a ):

$`V_{\mathrm{corr}}=V_{\mathrm{Yahil}}`$ $`\pm `$ $`[v(d)_\mathrm{H}v(d)]\times `$ (2)
$`\sqrt{1\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Theta }/d^2}+V_{\mathrm{LG}}^{\mathrm{in}}\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta },`$
where ($``$) is valid for points closer than the tangential point $`d_{\mathrm{gal}}<\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }`$ and ($`+`$) for $`d_{\mathrm{gal}}\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }`$.

$`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the angular distance of a galaxy from the centre of Virgo and $`d`$ is its distance $`R`$ from the centre normalized to the distance of Virgo ($`d=R/R_{\mathrm{Virgo}}`$). Following Ekholm et al. (1999a ) we take $`R_{\mathrm{Virgo}}=21\mathrm{Mpc}`$ and $`H_0=57\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$. The Hubble velocity at a distance $`d`$ from the centre of Virgo is $`v(d)_\mathrm{H}=V_{\mathrm{cosm}}(1)\times d`$. The cosmological velocity of the Virgo cluster becomes $`V_{\mathrm{cosm}}(1)=1200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The predicted velocity $`v(d)`$ is solved using the Tolman-Bondi model as described by Ekholm et al. (1999a ).

## 4 Results

We present the corrected velocity vs. distance relations for the very local velocity field ($`R_{2/3}<8`$ Mpc) in Figs. 1 and 2. In Fig. 1 velocities are corrected only for the solar motion according to Yahil et al. (Yahil77 (1977)). We calculate the velocity dispersion without the Local Group members (the first 4 symbols marked as crosses), where certainly the internal dynamics masks the possible Hubble term which is small compared with the value of the velocity dispersion. The velocity dispersion is $`\sigma _v=42\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ solved from galaxies between $`R_{2/3}[1.0,8.0]\mathrm{Mpc}`$. The expected Hubble law is given as a solid straight line and the $`1\sigma `$ dispersion as dotted lines.

In Fig. 2 we show the influence of the correction for the virgocentric motion. Now the velocity dispersion decreases down to $`\sigma _v=37\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The decrease in $`\sigma _v`$ is not significant. This is expected because most of the galaxies are at large angular distance from the Virgo except IC4182 having $`\mathrm{\Theta }=26.4\mathrm{°}`$. It is quite remarkable that after the correction this galaxy follows almost exactly the expected Hubble law.

Both Figs. 1 and 2 support the conclusion 4 of Sandage (Sandage86 (1986)). The observed random velocities get smaller as the uncertainties in the adopted distance indicator diminish.

Fig. 3 shows the predictions for the velocity perturbations in Sandage’s point-mass model for the case when the mass of the Local Group $`M_{\mathrm{LG}}=2\times 10^{12}M_{\mathrm{}}`$. For example, van den Bergh (vdBergh99 (1999)) estimates that $`M_{\mathrm{LG}}=2.3\pm 0.6\times 10^{12}M_{\mathrm{}}`$. Evans et al. (Evans00 (2000)) give an upper limit $`M_{\mathrm{LG}}=2.4\times 10^{12}M_{\mathrm{}}`$.

The velocities were deduced for three cosmologies using a numerical algorithm for the Tolman-Bondi calculations (Hanski et al. Hanski00 (2000)). The solid curve shows the prediction for the now preferred Friedman model $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$. The dashed line corresponds to the classical flat model $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1.0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.0`$. The dotted line is the prediction for a low mass-density universe $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.0`$. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is the mean density parameter of the matter and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the density parameter induced by the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-term. One may note that these models differ little from each other, which shows that the value of the velocity deflection (and the zero-velocity distance) is essentially determined by the mass of the LG.

Only galaxy that shows any significant deviation from the expected Hubble law is IC1613 but as pointed out in Sect. 2 its dynamical status is not well known. On the other hand M31 deviates only little from the Hubble law (in fact it is within the $`1\sigma `$ limit).

Sandage (Sandage86 (1986)) discussed the position of the barycentre. He pondered whether it would be possible to reduce the scatter in the Hubble diagram by “changing the origin of the distances to the centroid as well”. We have checked the behaviour of the velocity dispersion $`\sigma _v`$ as a function of the position of the barycentre between Galaxy and M31.

Recently Evans et al. (Evans00 (2000)) claimed that the halo of M31 is about as massive as the halo of Galaxy. In this case the centroid would be at the middle distance. Now, $`\sigma _v`$ changes quite slowly in the region between $`R_{1/2}`$ and $`R_{2/3}`$. For example at $`R_{1/2}`$ the dispersion $`\sigma _v=44\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and at $`R_{1/4}`$ it is $`\sigma _v=49\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. It is thus not possible to make any statistically relevant claims about the exact position of the barycentre. With a larger sample of field galaxies, the position of the barycentre (and hence the mass ratio $`M_{\mathrm{M31}}/M_{\mathrm{Galaxy}}`$) could perhaps be determined.

Finally we note that due to the lack of galaxies with Cepheid distances within $`R_{2/3}=1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ and $`R_{2/3}=2\mathrm{Mpc}`$ it is not possible to determine the zero-velocity surface. It is though important to note that galaxies within $`R_{2/3}=1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ show practically no deflection as compared to the theoretical curves shown in Fig. 3, except possibly the “free-floating” IC1613, which could fit some theoretical curve with $`M_{\mathrm{LG}}<10^{12}M_{\mathrm{}}`$.

## 5 Discussion and Conclusions

We may conclude that all the properties of the local Hubble flow, mentioned by Sandage, become even more remarkable when more accurate distances are used. Sandage (Sandage86 (1986)) noted that the derived velocity dispersion around the local Hubble law has progressively decreased together with increasing accuracy in distances, from Hubble’s $`200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ to his $`60\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Our results confirm that this trend continues, and $`\sigma _v40\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

The velocity-distance diagrams (Figs. 2 and 3) show that the local Hubble constant is much the same as the more global value derived from the Tully-Fisher indicator from the KLUN sample (Theureau et al. Theureau97 (1997); Ekholm et al. 1999b ). This also confirms Sandage’s (Sandage99 (1999)) recent estimate that the very local Hubble constant is the same as the global $`H_0`$ within 10 percent.

The third important feature is the small distance where the Hubble law emerges. The new data show that the linear Hubble law extends down to at least 1.5 Mpc. Hence, within the standard Friedman model (including the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$; see Fig. 3), one gets an upper limit for the mass of the Local Group ($`2\times 10^{12}M_{\mathrm{}}`$).

The quiet Hubble flow within the very clumpy local galaxy universe has always been a real riddle (Sandage et al. Sandage72 (1972); Sandage Sandage99 (1999)). The problem of the local quiet Hubble flow was studied by Governato et al. (Governato97 (1997)) using high-resolution CDM N-body simulations.They constructed a large sample of “Local Groups” and calculated the velocity dispersions in $`5\mathrm{Mpc}`$ volumes around the LG candidates. They found for $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ CDM model that the velocity dispersion is $`300700\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and for $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.3`$ CDM model $`150300\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. They state that these simulations were unable to produce a single LG having a velocity dispersion as low as observed.

The very local Hubble diagram offers several important applications for cosmology when the number of accurate Cepheid distances to local galaxies is increased. The mass of the Local Group and the position of its barycenter may be determined more precisely. And recently it has been suggested (Chernin et al. Chernin00 (2000)) that the quietness of the local Hubble flow is a signature of the cosmological vacuum (Einstein’s $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-constant corresponding to energy density $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }=\mathrm{const}`$) dominated universe where the velocity perturbations are adiabatically decreasing. For solution of both problems –the small velocity dispersion and the Hubble law starting immediately at $`1.5`$ Mpc with the global $`H_0`$ – Baryshev et al. (Baryshev00 (2000)) proposed that there is a cosmological, homogeneous dark energy (quintessence) component with time-variable energy density $`\rho _Q(t)`$ and equation of state $`p_Q=w\rho _Qc^2`$ with $`w[1,0]`$. These discussions show that the very local volume is extremely important for the study of global properties of the universe.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was partly supported by the Academy of Finland (project 45087: “Galaxy Streams and Structures in the nearby Universe” and project “Cosmology in the Local Galaxy Universe”). We have made use of the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database LEDA and the Lyon Extragalactic Cepheid Database. We are grateful for the referee, M. Capaccioli, for his comments.


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# 1 This is the result for 𝐵_𝑐 meson, 𝜏_𝐵_𝑐 denotes the lifetime of 𝐵_𝑐, Γ^{𝑝𝑒𝑛.} denotes the enhancement caused by the penguin contribution. The Γ(𝜏𝜈) denotes the width of the total leptonic decay, and the 𝐵_{𝑆𝐿} denotes the branching ratio of the semileptonic decay of 𝐵_𝑐.

Study of the $`B_c`$-meson lifetime

Chao-Hsi Chang1,2, Shao-Long Chen3, Tai-Fu Feng2,3 and Xue-Qian Li1,2,3

1. CCAST (World Laboratory), P.O. Box 8730, Beijing 100080, China111Not postmail address for the authors.

2. Institute of Theoretical Physics, Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China

3. Department of Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China

Abstract

We in terms of optical theorem estimate the lifetime of $`B_c`$meson with the parameters which are deturmined by fitting the data for the lifetimes and inclusive semilepton-decays of various $`B`$ and $`D`$ mesons. In the estimate, we find that the bound-state effects are important, and take them into account carefully in the framework which attributes the effects to the effective masses of the decay heavy quarks in the inclusive processes. We also find that to $`B_c`$ lifetime the penguin contribution is enhanced due to possible interference between the penguin and the ‘tree part’ $`c_1O_1+c_2O_2`$.

PACS numbers: 14.40.Nd, 14.40.Lb, 12.39.Hg, 12.38.Lg
Key words: $`B_c`$-meson, lifetime

Very recently the meson $`B_c`$ has been observed in CDF detector at Fermilab Tevatron. The observation is through the semi-leptonic decays $`B_cJ/\psi +l+\nu _l`$, and not only the value of its mass $`m_{B_c}=6.40\pm 0.39\pm 0.13`$ GeV, but also the lifetime $`\tau _{B_c}=0.46_{0.16}^{+0.18}\pm 0.03`$ ps are given . Therefore to estimate its lifetime so as to understand the meson and its decay mechanisms becomes one re-freshed interesting problem.

$`B_c`$meson is composed of two heavy flavors and both of them contribute to the lifetime comparetively. It is known that the Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET)  successfully applies to phenomenology of heavy mesons and baryons, although there are still some open problems in B and D physics, such as the unexpected difference between lifetimes of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ and B-mesons  and missing charm puzzle  etc. Since there is no light flavor quarks in $`B_c`$meson, HQET so the Isgur-Wise form factor scenario does not apply here.

Since the optical theorem may apply to inclusive processes properly so some non-perturbative effects can be absorbed by the theorem, thus we focus our attention on the inclusive processes, especially, the lifetime with the help of the theorem in this paper.

As realized by many authors, in D and B decays besides the spectator mechanism i.e. the direct decay of $`c`$ or $`\overline{b}`$, the non-spectator mechanisms are quite important too. There are two distinct types of non-spectator mechanisms: the W-annihilation (WA) and the Pauli-interference (PI), whose details are depicted in . As for $`B_c`$ meson, owing to the non-spectator mechanisms the situation becomes more complicated and interesting. In $`B_{d(u)},B_s`$ decays, the penguin contributions and its interference with that of the ‘tree piece’ $`c_1O_1+c_2O_2`$ can be ignored due to the CKM suppression. In contrary, for $`B_c`$ meson, $`\overline{b}\overline{c}+\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}W^+\mathrm{"}`$ and $`\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}W^+\mathrm{"}c+\overline{s}`$ (here $`\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}W^+\mathrm{"}`$ denotes a virtual $`W^+`$boson) are favored according to the CKM entries, so there are charm in initial state and charm, anti-charm in final state. Therefore, the interference between the penguin and ‘tree piece’ may contributes to the decay (see below for some details). Namely the penguin contribution becomes more important and $`B_c`$meson decay may serve as an ideal place to study the penguin mecahnism. Our numerical results show that such interference can cause a contribution as large as about 3$``$4% in the total width, while in $`B_{d(u)}`$ and $`B_s`$ cases, the contribution is less than 0.5%.

Moreover, in $`B_c`$, as in the heavy quarkonia, the bound-state effects should be considered carefully, even when evaluating its inclusive processes. We take a phenomenological approach to deal with the masses of the decay quarks $`b(\overline{b})`$ and $`c(\overline{c})`$ in various heavy mesons i.e. in various bound-state by fitting data. Recently, a modification of HQET, the so-called Heavy Quark Effective Field Theory (HQEFT), is proposed, where the bound state effects are taken into account for $`B`$ hadrons: when evaluating the decays, the b-quark mass takes a different value in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ from that in B-mesons, so the aforementioned problem, the lifetime difference between $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ and $`B`$mesons, can be answered reasonably. Indeed, the bound state effects, which affect the inclusive decays, may be attributed to the effective mass of the decay quark mainly.

For $`B_{d(u)},B_s`$ decays, the contributions to the decay widths from $`\overline{b}`$ and $`c`$ quarks are described quite well in literature, and the general formulation for the non-spectator contributions WA and PI have been given in . The formulation of $`B_c`$ is given in  and the readers who are interested in the details are advised to refer to it. Here we only present the part of formulation relating to $`B_c`$ for later convenience, focus on description of the physical picture, and discuss the physical essence and consequences.

The spectator contributions to $`B_c`$ lifetime are the incoherent sum of $`\overline{b}`$ and $`c`$ decay, when the bound-state effects, as pointed out above, are attributed to the effective masses of $`\overline{b}`$ and $`c`$ quarks respectively only, that is one of essential differences from the other $`B`$mesons.

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mathrm{spectator}}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_b^{\mathrm{spectator}}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_c^{\mathrm{spectator}}.$$
(1)
Furthermore, the non-spectator parts may have a unignorable interference.

The effective Lagrangian, on that the present study is based, is

$`L_{eff}^{\mathrm{\Delta }B=1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}\{V_{cb}[V_{ud}^{}(c_1(\mu )O_1^u+c_2(\mu )O_2^u)+V_{cs}^{}(c_1(\mu )O_1^c+c_2(\mu )O_2^c)+`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{l=e,\tau ,\mu }{}}\overline{l}\gamma _\mu L\nu \overline{c}\gamma ^\nu Lb+V_{cs}^{}{\displaystyle \underset{i=3}{\overset{6}{}}}c_iO_i]\}+h.c.`$
Here the notations for operators and their coefficients are given in .

Skipping the tedious details, we have the contribution of PI i.e. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{PI}(tree)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{PI}(penguin)`$ to the total width as

$`𝚪^{PI}(tree)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{4\pi }}f_{Bc}^2M_{B_c}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2(1z_{})^2p_{}^2\{[2c_1c_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}(c_1^2+c_2^2)]B_1`$ (3)
$`+2(c_1^2+c_2^2)ϵ_1\}`$
$`𝚪^{PI}(penguin)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{4\pi }}f_{Bc}^2M_{B_c}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2(1z_{})^2p_{}^2\{[2c_2c_4+2c_1c_3+2c_3c_4+`$ (5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}(c_3^2+c_4^2+2c_2c_3+2c_1c_4)]B_1+2(c_3^2+c_4^2+2c_2c_3+2c_1c_4)ϵ_1\}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{4\pi }}f_{Bc}^2M_{B_c}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2(1z_{})^2\{[2c_5c_6+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}(c_5^2+c_6^2)][{\displaystyle \frac{2+z_{}}{3}}p_{}^2\stackrel{~}{B}_2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1+2z_{}}{6}}(m_b^2\stackrel{~}{B}_1+m_c^2B_14m_bm_cB_2+2m_bm_cB_1)]+2(c_5^2+c_6^2)[{\displaystyle \frac{2+z_{}}{3}}p_{}^2\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1+2z_{}}{6}}(m_b^2\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_1+m_c^2ϵ_12m_bm_c(ϵ_3+ϵ_4)+m_bm_c(ϵ_5+ϵ_6))]\}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{8\pi }}f_{Bc}^2M_{B_c}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2(1z_{})^2\overline{m}_c\{[c_1c_5+c_2c_6+c_3c_6+c_4c_5`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}(c_1c_6+c_2c_5+c_4c_6+c_3c_5)][2m_cB_1+m_b(4B_2+2B_1)]`$
$`+2(c_1c_6+c_2c_5+c_4c_6+c_3c_5)[2m_cϵ_12m_b(ϵ_3+ϵ_4)+m_b(ϵ_5+ϵ_6)]\}.`$
For WA, we have three pieces as the follows:

$`𝚪^{WA}(tree)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{12\pi }}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2f_{Bc}^2M_{B_c}(1z_+)^2\{[Nc_1^2+2c_1c_2+{\displaystyle \frac{c_2^2}{N}}]`$ (6)
$`\times [(1+{\displaystyle \frac{z_+}{2}})M_{B_c}^2B_1(1+2z_+)(m_b^2B_2+m_c^2\stackrel{~}{B}_2+2m_bm_cB_2)]`$
$`+2c_2^2[(1+{\displaystyle \frac{z_+}{2}})M_{B_c}^2ϵ_1(1+2z_+)(m_b^2ϵ_2+m_c^2\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_2+m_bm_c(ϵ_3+ϵ_4))]\},`$
$`𝚪^{WA}(B_c\tau \nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{12\pi }}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2f_{Bc}^2M_{B_c}(1z_+)^2\{(1+{\displaystyle \frac{z_\tau }{2}})M_{B_c}^2B_1`$ (7)
$`(1+2z_\tau )(m_b^2B_2+m_c^2\stackrel{~}{B}_2+2m_bm_cB_2)\},`$
$`𝚪^{WA}(penguin)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{12\pi }}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2f_{B_c}^2M_{B_c}(1z_+)^2\{[({\displaystyle \frac{2c_2+c_3}{N}}+2c_1+c_4)(c_3+Nc_4)]`$ (8)
$`\times [(1+{\displaystyle \frac{z_+}{2}})M_{B_c}^2B_1(1+2z_+)(m_b^2B_2+m_c^2\stackrel{~}{B}_2+2m_bm_cB_2)]`$
$`+2(2c_2+c_3)c_3[(1+{\displaystyle \frac{z_+}{2}})p_+^2ϵ_1(1+2z_+)(m_b^2ϵ_2+m_c^2\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_2+m_bm_c(ϵ_3+ϵ_4))]\}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{2\pi }}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2f_{Bc}^2M_{B_c}^3(1z_+)^2\left\{[{\displaystyle \frac{c_5^2}{N}}+2c_5c_6+Nc_6^2]\stackrel{~}{B}_2+2c_5^2\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_2\right\}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{4\pi }}|V_{cb}|^2|V_{cs}|^2f_{Bc}^2M_{B_c}\overline{m}_c(1z_+)^2\{[({\displaystyle \frac{c_2+c_3}{N}}+c_1+c_4)(c_5+Nc_6)]`$
$`\times [2m_bB_2+2m_c\stackrel{~}{B}_2]+2(c_2+c_3)c_5[m_b(ϵ_3+ϵ_4)+2m_b\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_2]\},`$
where

$`z_{}={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{m}_c^2}{p_{}^2}},`$ $`p_{}=p_bp_{\overline{c}},`$ (9)
and

$`p_+`$ $`=`$ $`p_b+p_c,`$
$`z_+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{m}_c^2}{p_+^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{m}_c^2}{M_{B_c}^2}},`$
$`z_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_\tau ^2}{p_+^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{m_\tau ^2}{M_{B_c}^2}}.`$ (10)
Note that due to the chiral suppression only $`B_c\tau ^+\nu `$ and $`B_cc\overline{s}`$ are considered for WA.

In the expressions the pieces with the superscripts ‘WA’ or ‘PI’ (corresponding to the W-annihilation or Pauli-interference parts) and tree in the brackets denote all the contributions from the ‘tree’ part, i.e. the $`c_1O_1`$ and $`c_2O_2`$ terms, whereas those with penguin in the brackets mean the contributions not only from the $`penguin`$ part $`c_iO_i(i=3,4,5,6)`$ alone, but also from its interference with the ‘tree’ part. Obviously, for $`B_c`$, there are interferences proportional to $`c_ic_1,c_ic_2(i=3\mathrm{}6)`$, whereas for $`B_{d(u)},B_s`$, proportional to $`c_ic_j(i,j=3,\mathrm{}6)`$, the interferences among the penguin terms themselves only. Since $`c_1,c_2`$ are of order O(1) and $`c_i(i=3,\mathrm{}6)`$ is of order O($`10^2`$), so roughly, $`c_ic_j`$ is four orders smaller than $`c_1^2,c_2^2,c_1c_2`$, but $`c_ic_1,c_ic_2`$ are only two (even one) orders smaller, thus the penguin terms may play more significant roles in $`B_c`$ decays. Moreover, note that since $`m_c`$ cannot be neglected in the derivation of decay-width operators for $`B_c`$ decays, while the light flavors are taken as zero-mass fermions for $`B_{d(u)},B_s`$ decays, so several new operators appear.

To calculate the the contributions of the non-spectator parts, one needs to evaluate the hadronic matrix elements with dimention $`6`$ operators even for the lifetime, which are governed by the non-perturbative QCD, and so far can be dealt with phenomenologically only. As pointed out by many authors , the non-factorization effects modify the results of the ‘vacuum saturation’ and the modifications can be described by introducing in a few parameters $`B_k`$ (deviating from $`1`$) and $`ϵ_k`$ (deviating from $`0`$)222In fact in Eqs.(3-8) the modifications from the vacuum saturation have been made in this way already. The detailed expressions can be found in . With some symmetry arguments as in literature, we fix the values for the parameters so the hadronic matrix elements within tolerable errors.

As aforementioned, Instead of determining the heavy quark masses in bound-states from any underlying theory as what  did, we phenomenologically take the bound state effects into account of the quark masses by fitting data of the lifetimes and branching ratios of inclusive-semileptonic decays for the mesons $`B_{d(u)}`$ and $`B_s`$.

We simply write

$$M_Q^{eff}=M_Q^{pole}\mathrm{\Delta },$$
(11)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ manifests the bound-state effects and will be fixed phenomenologically.

Fitting the data for $`B_{d(u)}`$ and $`B_s`$ as well as D-mesons, we obtain:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_c^{(D)}m_c^{pole}m_c^{eff}=0.23\mathrm{GeV};$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_b^{(B)}m_b^{pole}m_b^{eff}=0.110.13\mathrm{GeV}.$$

The superscripts (B) and (D) denote that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for b and c-quarks are determined by fitting the data of D and B mesons respectively.

For the $`B_c`$ meson, the spectator contribution is an incoherent sum of that from individual $`\overline{b}`$ and $`c`$ quark decays while leaving the other as a spectator. But we should note that when evaluating this contribution, $`m_b`$ ad $`m_c`$ take their effective values at the energy scales $`M_Bm_b(m_b)`$ for the pole mass $`m_b^{pole}(B_c)`$ and at $`M_Dm_c(m_c)`$ for the pole mass $`m_c^{pole}(B_c)`$. Namely, we determine the effective masses for $`\overline{b}`$ and $`c`$ of the $`B_c`$meson through $`B`$ and $`D`$ decays. Whereas the $`\overline{c}`$ in the final state is the decay product of $`\overline{b}`$quark and now we are considering inclusive processes, so we should take its running mass for the $`\overline{c}`$quark at the energy scale of $`M_B`$. For the non-spectator contributions, i.e. the WA and PI pieces, the corresponding scale for the anti-charm quark mass of the final state should be $`M_{B_c}`$. In the numerical calculations for the present paper, we take the relevant parameters as follows: $`M_{B_c}=6.25`$ GeV, $`M_{B_c}^{}=6.33`$ GeV, $`B_i=\stackrel{~}{B}_i(i=1,2)=1`$, $`ϵ_1=\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_1=0.14`$, $`ϵ_2=\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_2=0.08`$, $`ϵ_{3,4}ϵ_2`$, $`ϵ_{5,6}ϵ_1`$, and for the decay constant we adopt two possible values $`f_{B_c}=500`$ MeV and $`f_{B_c}=440`$ MeV respectively. For the calculation of PI contribution, $`p_{}^2=(p_{\overline{b}}p_c)^2(2m_b^2+2m_c^2M_{B_c}^2)`$ is adopted. With the parameters, we finally obtain the numerical results and tabulate them in Table 1.

Here the puzzle about the effective masses of $`\overline{b}`$ and $`c`$ emerges again, because both of them reside in the same bound state $`B_c`$. Taking all the above parameters, we would obtain the values presented in table 1. Now let us consider the bound-state effects on the effective quark-masses in $`B_c`$ meson more precisely. Because $`B_c`$ includes two heavy quarks, the bound-state effects might be different from those in $`B,D`$ mesons which contains one light flavor. If we are tempted to believe that the values $`m_c^{eff}`$ and $`m_b^{eff}`$ might be smaller than $`m_c^{eff}=1.65`$ GeV and $`m_b^{eff}=4.9`$ GeV obtained by $`B`$ and $`D`$ decays and phenomenologically if $`m_c^{eff}(B_c)=1.55`$ GeV, $`m_b^{eff}(B_c)=4.85`$ GeV instead, we would have $`\tau (B_c)0.47`$ ps, which is closer to the recently measured $`B_c`$ lifetime. In this case, it will mean $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c^{B_c}=0.33`$ GeV and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b^{B_c}=0.17`$ GeV.

The results indicate the importance of the bound-state effects on the phenomenology. It is easy to understand the fact, i.e. the rates of direct $`\overline{b}`$ and $`c`$ decays, which dominate the lifetime of $`B_c`$ meson, are proportional to $`(m_Q^{eff})^5`$, the results are somewhat sensitive to the $`m_Q^{eff}`$values. It is a ‘good’ place to ‘determine’ the quark effective masses $`m_Q`$. From the physics picture, the quark effective masses introduced here should have more precise meaning in the framework of the potential model and be good to involve certain non-perturbative QCD effects.

As a summary, in this work, we study the effects when decaying quarks reside in bound states phonomenologically with care. We collect all the informations gained from heavy mesons $`B_{d(u)},B_s`$ and $`D`$, we further calculate the lifetime of $`B_c`$ meson. In the process, we notice that the bound state effects are important even to the spectator modes. Moreover, because of the CKM entries, and the interference between the penguin and the tree piece, the penguin contribution is more important in $`B_c`$ case than in $`B_{d(u)}`$ and $`B_s`$. Therefore, further experimental progress in measuring $`B_c`$ lifetime and branching ratios may provide more informations about the reaction mechanisms and especially it would make definite hints to the interesting penguin mechanism etc.

Acknowledgments:

This work is partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.