Heavy-flavor multimodal fragmentation to $S$-wave pentacharms at next-generation hadron colliders

TL;DR

This paper develops a new set of fragmentation functions to describe the production of fully charmed pentaquark states at future hadron colliders, advancing understanding of exotic multiquark matter.

Contribution

It introduces PQ5Q1.0 fragmentation functions with improved initial-scale calculations for heavy-quark fragmentation, applicable to compact multicharm states and configurations.

Findings

Predicted semi-inclusive production rates for pentacharm-plus-jet systems at HL-LHC and FCC.

Enhanced fragmentation functions improve modeling of exotic multiquark states.

Bridges hadronic structure, precision QCD, and exotic matter studies.

Abstract

We investigate the leading-power fragmentation of fully charmed pentaquark states ($S$-wave $|c\bar{c}ccc\rangle$ pentacharms) at hadron colliders. We introduce a new set of multimodal collinear fragmentation functions, named PQ5Q1.0. They rely on an enhanced calculation of the initial-scale input for the constituent heavy-quark fragmentation channel, making them well suited to describe the short-distance emission of either a compact multicharm state or a dicharm-charm-dicharm configuration. To explore phenomenological implications, we use the (sym)JETHAD multimodular interface to study NLL/NLO$^+$ semi-inclusive production rates for pentacharm-plus-jet systems at the forthcoming HL-LHC and the future FCC. Our analysis represents a further step toward bridging the domains of hadronic structure, precision QCD, and exotic matter.