Study of $J/\psi\to p\bar{p}\phi$ at BESIII

TL;DR

This study measures the decay rate of J/psi to p p-bar phi with high precision and finds no evidence of an enhancement near the p p-bar mass threshold, setting a new upper limit.

Contribution

The paper provides a more precise measurement of the branching fraction for J/psi to p p-bar phi and searches for threshold enhancements, setting new upper limits.

Findings

Branching fraction measured as (5.23 ± 0.06(stat) ± 0.33(syst)) × 10^{-5}

No significant p p-bar mass threshold enhancement observed

Upper limit on X(p p-bar) phi decay set at 2.1 × 10^{-7} at 90% CL

Abstract

Using a data sample of $1.31 \times 10^{9}$ $J/\psi$ events accumulated with the BESIII detector, the decay $J/\psi\to p\bar{p}\phi$ is studied via two decay modes, $\phi\to K^{0}_{S}K^{0}_{L}$ and $\phi\to K^{+}K^{-}$. The branching fraction of $J/\psi\to p\bar{p}\phi$ is measured to be $\mathcal{B}(J/\psi\to p\bar{p}\phi)=[5.23\pm0.06(\mbox{stat})\pm0.33(\mbox{syst})]\times10^{-5}$, which agrees well with a previously published measurement, but with a significantly improved precision. No evident enhancement near the $p\bar{p}$ mass threshold, denoted as $X(p\bar{p})$, is observed, and the upper limit on the branching fraction of $J/\psi\to X(p\bar{p})\phi\to p\bar{p}\phi$ is determined to be $\mathcal{B}(J/\psi\to X(p\bar{p})\phi\to p\bar{p}\phi)<2.1\times10^{-7}$ at the 90\% confidence level.