Missing beauty of proton-proton interactions

TL;DR

This paper investigates the discrepancies in the production rates of excited bottomonium states at the LHC, revealing significant deviations from expected mass-based scaling, which challenges assumptions about proton-proton interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a method using transverse mass scaling to estimate differences in bottomonium state distributions, highlighting unexpected results in their production yields.

Findings

The yield of $$(2S) is 1.6 times less than expected.

The yield of $$(3S) is 2.4 times less than expected.

Significant deviations from mass-based scaling in bottomonium production.

Abstract

From first principles, particles with the same quark content and similar masses should have similar kinematic distributions. Transverse mass scaling may be employed to estimate possible differences in the momentum distribution of such particles. Based on this scaling the excited bottomonium states measured at the LHC are found to be significantly different from $\Upsilon$(1S) to the extent that the integrated yield of $\Upsilon$(2S) is 1.6 times less and $\Upsilon$(3S) 2.4 times less than would be explained by the mass difference. This proceeding explains how the estimate is worked out and relates it to other measurements performed at the LHC.