Inclusive production of heavy quarkonium $\eta_Q$ via $Z$ boson decays within the framework of nonrelativistic QCD

TL;DR

This paper studies the inclusive production of heavy quarkonium $ ext{eta}_Q$ via $Z$ boson decays using nonrelativistic QCD, highlighting the dominant color-octet contribution and potential for experimental measurement at future colliders.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculation of $Z$ decay widths into $ ext{eta}_Q$ including color-octet states, and suggests using these decays to determine long-distance matrix elements.

Findings

Decays $Z o ext{eta}_Q + X$ are dominated by the $^3S_1^{[8]}$ state.

Predicted $eta_c$ and $eta_b$ event numbers at a super Z factory are approximately $4.5 imes 10^7$ and $6.1 imes 10^5$ annually.

Results can help clarify heavy quarkonium production mechanisms and test nonrelativistic QCD.

Abstract

In the paper, the inclusive production of heavy quarkonium $\eta_Q$ ($Q=b$ or $c$) via $Z$ boson decays within the framework of nonrelativistic QCD effective theory are studied. The contributions from the leading color-singlet and color-octet Fock states are considered. Total and differential decay widths for the inclusive decays $Z \to \eta_Q+X$ are presented. It is found that the decays $Z\to \eta_Q +X$ are dominated by the $^3S_1^{[8]}$ component, so the decays can be inversely adopted to determine the values of the long-distance matrix elements $\langle {\cal O}^{\eta_{c}}(^{3}S_{1}^{[8]})\rangle$ and $\langle {\cal O}^{\eta_{b}}(^{3}S_{1}^{[8]})\rangle$, respectively. Our numerical results show that at an $e^+e^-$ collider running at the $Z$ pole with a high luminosity around $10^{35}{\rm cm}^{-2}{\rm s}^{-1}$ (a super $Z$ factory), there are about $4.5\times 10^7$ $\eta_c$ meson events and $6.1\times 10^5$ $\eta_b$ meson events to be produced per operation year, and the inclusive decays may be used for clarifying some problems on the heavy quarkonium $\eta_Q$ and nonrelativistic QCD.