All-charm tetraquarks at hadron colliders: A high-precision fragmentation perspective

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive set of fragmentation functions for all-heavy tetraquark production in high-energy collisions, incorporating advanced uncertainty quantification and state-of-the-art evolution techniques.

Contribution

It extends previous models by including nonconstituent heavy-quark effects and provides the first complete phenomenological set for all-heavy exotic tetraquarks.

Findings

First complete set of fragmentation functions for all-heavy tetraquarks.

Incorporates uncertainty quantification via multi-scale variations.

Provides publicly available TQ4Q2.0 grids for collider phenomenology.

Abstract

We present the TQ4Q2.0 fragmentation functions for the production of all-heavy (fully heavy) $S$-wave tetraquarks ($T_{4Q}$) with scalar ($0^{++}$), axial-vector ($1^{+-}$), and tensor ($2^{++}$) quantum numbers in high-energy hadronic collisions. This work extends the previous TQ4Q1.1 framework by incorporating nonconstituent heavy-quark contributions and introducing a replica-based uncertainty-quantification strategy derived from multi-scale variations (MHOUs). The construction follows a nonrelativistic QCD factorization approach, combining gluon- and heavy-quark-initiated fragmentation channels at leading power. Initial-scale inputs are modeled through updated potential-inspired wave functions, while the subsequent DGLAP evolution is performed via the threshold-aware HF-NRevo scheme. A comprehensive systematic analysis of uncertainties is carried out, with contributions from color-composite long-distance matrix elements (LDMEs) and perturbative multiscale inputs. The resulting TQ4Q2.0 grids, publicly released in LHAPDF6 format, provide the first complete phenomenological set for all-heavy exotics, enabling precise studies of all-charm tetraquark production and jet-associated observables within the JETHAD environment. This article completes the high-energy resummation-driven generation of the TQ4Q program and establishes a definitive baseline for future collider-oriented analyses of all-heavy multiquark dynamics.