Femtoscopy of $D$ mesons and light mesons upon unitarized effective field theories

TL;DR

This paper uses unitarized effective field theories to compute and analyze femtoscopic correlation functions of $D$ mesons with light mesons, revealing potential experimental signatures of the two-pole structure of certain heavy meson states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel off-shell $T$-matrix approach to predict $D$ meson-light meson correlation functions, highlighting their sensitivity to the two-pole structure of heavy meson resonances.

Findings

Correlation functions can reveal the two-pole structure of $D_0^*(2300)$.

Depletion in correlation functions indicates the presence of poles.

Preliminary data do not show the effect, but future measurements could confirm it.

Abstract

Hadron femtoscopy has turned into a powerful tool for accessing space-time information of heavy-ion collisions as well as for studying final-state interactions of hadrons. Recently, heavy-flavor femtoscopy has become feasible using the ALICE detector at the LHC. We compute the correlation function of $D$ mesons and light mesons using an off-shell $T$-matrix approach to access the two-meson wave function, and predict the correlation functions involving charged $D^+, D^{*+},D_s^+$ and $D_s^{*+}$ with $\pi^\pm$ and $K^\pm$. From the obtained results -- all of them accessible in $p+p$ collision experiments -- we point up the case of $D^+ \pi^-$, which is sensitive to the lower state of the two-pole $D_0^* (2300)$ system. The presence of such poles imprints a depletion on the correlation function, which could potentially be detected in experiments. While preliminary ALICE data do not show evidence of this effect, we suggest to look into the $D_s^+ K^-$ system to explore the higher pole of the $D_0^* (2300)$, as the depletion in the correlation function is more pronounced. Using heavy-quark spin symmetry we also propose exploring the effect of the two poles of the $D_1(2430)$ and predict similar structures in the correlation functions of the $D^{*+} \pi^-$ and $D_s^{*+} K^-$ pairs.