Decays of the f0(1370) scalar glueball candidate

TL;DR

This paper confirms the existence of the f0(1370) meson as a distinct scalar resonance through decay analysis in various channels, supporting its large gluonic content and suggesting future high-energy experiments for detailed scalar meson studies.

Contribution

It provides new experimental evidence for the f0(1370) as an isolated scalar meson and analyzes its decay channels, branching ratios, and gluonic content, advancing understanding of scalar meson structure.

Findings

f0(1370) confirmed as an isolated structure in multiple decay channels

Decay branching ratios suggest a large gluonic component

Low momentum transfer CEP at LHC can further clarify scalar meson nature

Abstract

For a long time doubts have existed on the existence of the f0(1370) meson as an individual object distinct and separated from the sigma meson. Decays into two charged pions of the f0(1370) are the main source of an isolated structure localized between 1.2 and 1.5 GeV in the two charged pions mass spectrum measured in pp Central Exclusive Production (CEP) at 200 GeV at very low four momentum transfer squared ltl. These data confirm in the two charged pions decay channel the existence of the f0(1370) as an isolated well identified structure that was previously observed in K+K-, KsKs, 4 neutral pions, two neutral pions-two charged pions and 4 charged pions decays measured in pbar annihilations at rest. The decay branching ratios of f0(1370) into sigma-sigma, rho-rho, pion-pion, KKbar, eta-eta relative to pion-pion decays obtained in analysis of data of pbar annihilations at rest which treat separately f0(1370) and sigma are respectively 5.6, 3, 1, 1, 0.02. The decay and production properties of f0(1370) point to a large gg content. CEP interactions at very high energies favour production of 0++ and 2++ mesons. Selection of events with low ltl at both proton vertices suppresses 2++ structures. LHC runs dedicated to pp CEP measurements at low ltl could then provide a unique clean source of all the low energy scalars, cross check the pbar annihilation results and make it clear if and where scalar gluonium is resident and the nature (composition in terms of qqbar, qqqbarqbar, qqbar-qqbar and gg) of f0(500), f0(980), f0(1370), f0(1500) and f0(1710).