Search for eta-mesic 4He with the WASA-at-COSY detector

TL;DR

This study searched for eta-mesic helium-4 nuclei using the WASA-at-COSY detector but found no evidence, setting upper limits on the formation and decay cross-section of such bound states.

Contribution

First experimental search for eta-mesic 4He using exclusive measurements and setting upper limits on its production cross-section.

Findings

No signal of eta-mesic 4He was observed.

Upper limits on cross-section range from 28 to 41 nb.

Reaction product distributions match phase-space simulations.

Abstract

We performed a search for the 4He-eta bound state via exclusive measurement of the excitation function for the dd->3Heppi- reaction, where the outgoing p-pi- pair originates from the conversion of the eta meson on a neutron inside the 4He nucleus. The measurements were performed at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY-Juelich with the WASA-at-COSY detection system.The internal deuteron beam of COSY was scattered on a pellet-type deuteron target. The data were taken during a slow acceleration of the beam from 2.185 GeV/c to 2.400 GeV/c crossing the kinematical threshold for the eta production in the dd->4He-eta reaction at 2.336 GeV/c. The corresponding excess energy in the 4He-eta system varied from -51.4 MeV to 22 MeV. Events corresponding to decays of the eta-mesic 4He were selected using cuts on the 3He momentum, p and pi- kinetic energies and the relative p-pi- angle in the center of mass system. The range of the applied cuts was inferred from simulations of decay of the 4He-eta bound state proceeding via excitation the N* resonance. The integrated luminosity in the experiment was determined using the dd->3He-n reaction and the relative normalization of the points of the dd->3Heppi- excitation function was based on the quasi-elastic proton-proton scattering. No signal of the 4He-eta bound state was observed in the excitation function. An upper limit for the cross-section for the bound state formation and decay in the process dd->(4He-eta)_bound->3Heppi- determined for the bound state width of 10, 20 and 30 MeV equals to 28, 32 and 41 nb, respectively. The measured angular and momentum distributions of the reaction products are close to those simulated under the assumption of uniform phase-space distribution.