Excited Charmonium Decays by Flux-Tube Breaking and the ${\psi }^{{}^{\prime }}$ Anomaly at CDF

Abstract

The hadronic decay of radially and orbitally excited charmonium above charm threshold by ${}^3{P}_0$ pair creation and chromoelectric flux--tube breaking is discussed in an harmonic oscillator approximation. We find independent evidence from a study of widths for a 2S admixture in the predominantly 1D state $\psi (3770)$, and explore the possibility of metastable radially excited $2{}^3{P}_{0,1,2}$ states being a source of the anomalously large production of ${\psi }^{{}^{\prime }}$ at the Tevatron. At least one of them is expected to be narrow as a consequence of the existence of nodes in the radial wave function.

Comments: 18 pages, LaTeX, 5 tables, 3 postscript figures, with minor alterations and improved cross-referencing