Quasi-exotic open-flavor mesons

TL;DR

This paper explores the properties of mesons with non-traditional quantum numbers in QCD, focusing on how their characteristics change when quark mass shifts affect their C-parity distinctions, aiming to guide experimental identification.

Contribution

It introduces a covariant bound-state framework analysis of quasi-exotic mesons without fixed C-parity, providing new signatures for experimental detection.

Findings

Mass and decay constant behaviors of quasi-exotic mesons

Orbital-angular-momentum decomposition patterns

Potential experimental signatures of charged quasi-exotic excitations

Abstract

Meson states with exotic quantum numbers arise naturally in a covariant bound-state framework in QCD. We investigate the consequences of shifting quark masses such that the states are no longer restricted to certain C-parities, but only by J^P. Then, a priori, one can no longer distinguish exotic or conventional states. In order to identify signatures of the different states to look for experimentally, we provide the behavior of masses, leptonic decay constants, and orbital-angular-momentum decomposition of such mesons, as well as the constellations in which they could be found. Most prominently, we consider the case of charged quasi-exotic excitations of the pion.