Charm Physics Performance Studies for PANDA

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the performance of the PANDA experiment in studying charmonium states, demonstrating precise measurements of mass and width, and analyzing decay modes to understand strong interactions.

Contribution

It presents a detailed feasibility study of charmonium measurements at PANDA, highlighting the potential for high-precision mass and width determinations and decay mode analysis.

Findings

High-precision mass and width measurements are feasible with PANDA.

Background processes can be effectively controlled in charmonium decay analysis.

Comparison of decay modes provides insights into electromagnetic transitions of h_c.

Abstract

The study of the charmonium (cbar c) system is a powerful tool to understand the strong interaction. In pbar p annihilations studied with PANDA, the mass and width of the charmonium state, such as h_c, will be measured with an excellent accuracy, determined by the very precise knowledge of the momentum, p, beam resolution (dp/p=10e(-4)-10e(-5)) and not limited by the resolution of the detector. The analysis of h_c demonstrates the feasibility to accurately determine a specific final state in the spectrum of charmed mesons. The preliminary background analysis of the pbar p -> pi0 pi0 pi0 decay competing with a signal channel pbar p -> h_c -> eta_c + gamma -> (pi0 + pi0 + eta) + gamma is under control. A comparison of three decay modes of charmonium h_c via the electromagnetic transition is presented.