Hadronic-loop induced mass shifts in scalar heavy-light mesons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how hadronic loops affect the mass of heavy-light scalar mesons, showing significant mass shifts that influence the interpretation of observed states and providing predictions for bottom mesons.

Contribution

It introduces a calculation of mass shifts due to hadronic loops for heavy-light scalar mesons, highlighting their impact on meson mass predictions and interpretations.

Findings

Mass shifts can significantly reduce quark model masses.

The observed D*_0 state may be a dressed quark-antiquark state.

Predictions for bottom scalar mesons to test the dressing mechanism.

Abstract

We calculate the mass shifts of heavy-light scalar mesons due to hadronic loops under the assumption that these vanish for the groundstate heavy-light mesons. The results show that the masses calculated in quark models can be reduced significantly. We stress that the mass alone is not a signal for a molecular interpretation. Both the resulting mass and the width suggest the observed $D_0^*$ state could be a dressed $c\bar q$ state. We give further predictions for the bottom scalar mesons which can be used to test the dressing mechanism.