Observation of $η_{c}(2S) \to p \bar p$ and search for $X(3872) \to p \bar p$ decays

Abstract

The first observation of the decay $η_{c}(2S) \to p \bar p$ is reported using proton-proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $3.0\rm \, fb^{-1}$ recorded by the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV. The $η_{c}(2S)$ resonance is produced in the decay $B^{+} \to [c\bar c] K^{+}$. The product of branching fractions normalised to that for the $J/ψ$ intermediate state, ${\cal R}_{η_{c}(2S)}$, is measured to be \begin{align*} {\cal R}_{η_{c}(2S)}\equiv\frac{{\mathcal B}(B^{+} \to η_{c}(2S) K^{+}) \times {\mathcal B}(η_{c}(2S) \to p \bar p)}{{\mathcal B}(B^{+} \to J/ψK^{+}) \times {\mathcal B}(J/ψ\to p \bar p)} =~& (1.58 \pm 0.33 \pm 0.09)\times 10^{-2}, \end{align*} where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. No signals for the decays $B^{+} \to X(3872) (\to p \bar p) K^{+}$ and $B^{+} \to ψ(3770) (\to p \bar p) K^{+}$ are seen, and the 95\% confidence level upper limits on their relative branching ratios are % found to be ${\cal R}_{X(3872)}<0.25\times10^{-2}$ and ${\cal R}_{ψ(3770))}<0.10$. In addition, the mass differences between the $η_{c}(1S)$ and the $J/ψ$ states, between the $η_{c}(2S)$ and the $ψ(2S)$ states, and the natural width of the $η_{c}(1S)$ are measured as \begin{align*} M_{J/ψ} - M_{η_{c}(1S)} =~& 110.2 \pm 0.5 \pm 0.9 \rm \, MeV, M_{ψ(2S)} -M_{η_{c}(2S)} =~ & 52.5 \pm 1.7 \pm 0.6 \rm \, MeV, Γ_{η_{c}(1S)} =~& 34.0 \pm 1.9 \pm 1.3 \rm \, MeV. \end{align*}

16 pages, 2 figures All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2016-016.html