Prompt production of the hidden charm pentaquarks in the LHC

TL;DR

This paper estimates the production cross sections of hidden charm pentaquarks at the LHC, providing guidance for their experimental search and insights into their molecular structure and quantum numbers.

Contribution

It offers the first detailed cross section estimates for hidden charm pentaquarks in the molecular picture at 7 TeV proton-proton collisions.

Findings

Cross sections are several nanobarns, predicting tens of detectable events.

Significant deviation in cross sections between different isospin components.

Cross sections decrease sharply with increasing transverse momentum.

Abstract

Motivated by the observation of the first hidden charm pentaquarks by the LHCb collaboration in 2015 and the updated analysis with an order-of-magnitude larger data set in 2019, we estimate their cross sections for the prompt production as well as their heavy quark spin partners, in the $\Sigma_c^{(*)}\bar{D}^{(*)}$ hadronic molecular picture, at the center-of-mass energy $7~\mathrm{TeV}$ in the $pp$ collision. Their cross sections are several $\mathrm{nb}$ and we would expect several tens hidden charm pentaquark events in the LHC based on its current integrated luminosity. The cross sections show a sizable deviation of the cross sections for hidden charm pentaquarks with the third isospin component $I_z=+\frac{1}{2}$ ($P_c^+$) from those with $I_z=-\frac{1}{2}$ ($P_c^0$). The cross sections decrease dramatically with the increasing transverse momentum. Our study can also tell where to search for the missing hidden charm pentaquarks. The confirmation of the complete hidden charm pentaquarks in the heavy quark symmetry would further verify their $\Sigma_c^{(*)}\bar{D}^{(*)}$ molecular interpretation. In addition, the relative strength among these cross sections for pentaquarks can help us to identify the quantum numbers of the $P_c(4440)$ and $P_c(4457)$.