Feasibility Study of Observing eta' Mesic Nuclei with (p,d) Reaction

TL;DR

This study proposes a new experimental method to observe eta' mesic nuclei using (p,d) reactions near threshold, which could reveal in-medium eta' mass modifications if the decay width is narrow.

Contribution

It introduces a novel missing mass spectroscopy approach for detecting eta' mesic states in 11C nuclei near the production threshold.

Findings

Peak structures are detectable if eta' mass reduction is large enough.

Feasibility is supported by high-intensity proton beams and good energy resolution.

Measurement could confirm in-medium eta' mass modifications.

Abstract

A novel method is proposed to measure eta'(958) meson bound states in 11C nuclei by missing mass spectroscopy of the 12C(p,d) reaction near the eta' production threshold. It is shown that peak structures will be observed experimentally in an inclusive measurement in case that the in-medium eta' mass reduction is sufficiently large and that the decay width of eta' mesic states is narrow enough. Such a measurement will be feasible with the intense proton beam supplied by the SIS synchrotron at GSI combined with the good energy resolution of the fragment separator FRS.