Fully charmed tetraquark production in forward rapidity $pp$ collisions at LHC and FCC energies

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the production of a fully charmed tetraquark state $T_{4c}$ in $pp$ collisions at forward rapidities through the fragmentation mechanism considering the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) formalism and the solution of the running coupling Balitsky-Kovchegov (BK) equation. The contributions of gluon - and charm - initiated processes are taken into account, and the impact of an intrinsic charm component in the proton's wave function is estimated. Predictions for the transverse momentum distribution of the $T_{4c}$ state are presented assuming different rapidities, distinct quantum numbers of the state and center-of-mass energies. Our results indicate that the higher cross-section is associated with the production of a tensor state $T_{4c}(2^{++})$, which is dominated by the gluon-initiated process. In contrast, the production of the axial-vector state $T_{4c}(1^{+-})$ is dominated by the charm-initiated process and is very sensitive to the presence (or not) of an intrinsic charm.

Comments: 13 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Improved version published in PRD