Search for eta-mesic 4He in the dd->3He n pi0 and dd->3He p pi- reactions with the WASA-at-COSY facility

TL;DR

This study searched for eta-mesic helium-4 nuclei using the WASA-at-COSY facility by measuring specific reactions and found no evidence of such bound states, setting upper limits on their production cross sections.

Contribution

First experimental search for eta-mesic 4He using the dd->3He n pi0 and dd->3He p pi- reactions with detailed upper limit constraints.

Findings

No narrow mesic state observed in excitation functions.

Upper limits of 3 nb and 6 nb for the cross sections in the npi0 and ppi- channels.

Acceptance and limits depend on N* momentum distribution assumptions.

Abstract

The search for 4He-eta bound states was performed with the WASA-at-COSY facility via the measurement of the excitation function for the dd->3He n pi0 and dd->3He p pi- processes. The beam momentum was varied continuously between 2.127 GeV/c and 2.422 GeV/c, corresponding to the excess energy for the dd->4He eta reaction ranging from Q=-70 MeV to Q=30 MeV. The luminosity was determined based on the dd->3He n reaction and quasi-free proton-proton scattering via dd->pp n_spectator n_spectator reactions. The excitation functions determined independently for the measured reactions do not reveal a structure which could be interpreted as a narrow mesic nucleus. Therefore, the upper limits of the total cross sections for the bound state production and decay in dd->(4He-eta)_bound->3He n pi0 and dd->(4He-eta)_bound->3He p pi- processes were determined taking into account the isospin relation between both the channels considered. The results of the analysis depend on the assumptions of the N* momentum distribution in the anticipated mesic-4He. Assuming as in the previous works, that this is identical with the distribution of nucleons bound with 20 MeV in 4He, we determined that (for the mesic bound state width in the range from 5 MeV to 50 MeV) the upper limits at 90% confidence level are about 3 nb and about 6 nb for npi0 and ppi- channels, respectively. However, based on the recent theoretical findings of the N*(1535) momentum distribution in the N*-3He nucleus bound by 3.6 MeV, we find that the WASA-at-COSY detector acceptance decreases and hence the corresponding upper limits are 5 nb and 10 nb for npi0 and ppi- channels respectively.