We present a plausible mechanism for the origin of the $XYZ$ mesons in the heavy meson spectra within a standard quark-model picture. We discuss the conditions required for the existence of four--quark bound states or resonances contributing to the heavy meson spectra, being either compact or molecular. We concentrate on charmonium and bottomonium spectra, where several new states, difficult to understand as simple quark-antiquark pairs, have been reported by different experimental collaborations. The pivotal role played by entangled meson-meson thresholds is emphasized.
In this talk we present a mechanism giving rise to exotic $XYZ$ four-quark states in the meson spectra within a constituent quark model approach. We discuss its generalization to five-quark states in the heavy baryon sector. Finally, we revise some other works in the literature and experimental data where this mechanism may be working.
The XYZ mesons are unexpected mesons containing a heavy quark-antiquark pair that have been discovered during the last decade. The models for the XYZ mesons that have been proposed include conventional quarkonium, quarkonium hybrids, and quarkonium tetraquarks, whose four constituents can be clustered in several possible ways. None of the models have provided a compelling pattern for the XYZ mesons. The most promising theoretical approaches within QCD are lattice QCD for the c c-bar mesons, lattice NRQCD for the b b-bar mesons, and the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. The additional hints that …
The XYZ mesons are mesons that contain a heavy quark and antiquark but have properties that seem to require additional constituents. Some of them are electrically charged, so they must be tetraquark mesons whose additional constituents are a light quark and antiquark. The list of XYZ mesons has grown to about two dozen over the last decade. A promising approach to understanding these mesons within QCD is the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, which reduces the problem to the solution of the Schrodinger equation in potentials that can be calculated using lattice QCD. The Born-Oppenheimer approxima…
Many of the XYZ mesons discovered in the last decade can be identified as bound states of a heavy quark and antiquark in Born-Oppenheimer (B-O) potentials defined by the energy of gluon and light-quark fields in the presence of static color sources. The mesons include quarkonium hybrids, which are bound states in excited flavor-singlet B-O potentials, and quarkonium tetraquarks, which are bound states in flavor-nonsinglet B-O potentials. The deepest hybrid potentials are known from lattice QCD calculations. The deepest tetraquark potentials can be inferred from lattice QCD calculations of stat…
Many of the XYZ mesons discovered in the last decade can be identified as bound states in Born-Oppenheimer (B-O) potentials for a heavy quark and antiquark. They include quarkonium hybrids, which are bound states in excited flavor-singlet B-O potentials, and quarkonium tetraquarks, which are bound states in flavor-nonsinglet B-O potentials. We present simple parameterizations of the deepest flavor-singlet B-O potentials. We infer the deepest flavor-nonsinglet B-O potentials from lattice QCD calculations of static adjoint mesons. Selection rules for hadronic transitions are used to identify XYZ…
We present the new developments in the physics of XYZ mesons and glueballs and discuss the connection between properties of the $XYZ$ mesons and glueballs, and the structure of the QCD vacuum. It is shown that the mixing between quark and gluon degree of freedoms induced by the nontrivial topological structure of the QCD vacuum might affect strongly the properties of the exotic hadrons. A new interpretation of the $XYZ$ mesons as the mixing between radial excitations of light quark-antiquark systems and states with heavy quark content is suggested. We introduce also a new mechanism of quarkoni…
Searches for tetraquarks and mesonic molecules in lattice QCD are briefly reviewed. In the light quark sector the most serious candidates are the lightest scalar resonances sigma, kappa, a0 and f0. In the hidden-charm sector I discuss lattice simulations of X(3872), Y(4260), Y(4140) and Z^+(4430). The most serious challenge in all these lattice studies is the presence of scattering states in addition to possible tetraquark/molecular states. The available methods for distinguishing both are reviewed and the main conclusions of the simulations are presented.
Quantum Chromodynamics, the theory of strong interactions, predicts several types of bound states. Among them are mesons ($q\bar{q}$) and baryons ($qqq$), which have been the only states observed in experiments for years. However, in the last decade, many states that do not fit this picture have been observed at $B$-factories (BaBar, Belle and CLEO), at $τ$-charm facilities (CLEO-c, BESIII) and also at proton-proton colliders (CDF, D0, LHCb, ATLAS, CMS). There is growing evidence that at least some of the new charmonium- and bottomonium-like states, the so-called XYZ mesons, are new forms of m…
Many candidate multiquark mesons, i.e., mesons with substructures that are more complex than the quark-antiquark prescription that is in the textbooks, have recently been observed. Many of the most recently observed candidate states are electrically charged and have the same spin and parity, namely JP=1+. In this talk I give an overview of the current experimental situation and identify patterns among the recently discovered JP=1+ states, compare these patterns with expectations from proposed theoretical models, and the existence of additional, related states that might be accessible at curren…
A number of charmonium- and bottomonium-like meson states have been observed that have properties that do not match well to expectations for the simple quark-antiquark substructure suggested by the constituent quark model. Some of them are electrically charged and decay to final states containing hidden charmonum or bottomonium mesons and, thus, must contain at least four quarks. Common properties of these so-called XYZ mesons are partial widths for decays to hidden quarkonium states plus light hadrons that are much larger than corresponding partial widths for established quarkonium mesons. I …
We discuss three possible scenarios for the interpretation of mesons containing a heavy quark and its antiquark near and above the first threshold for a decay into a pair of heavy mesons in a relative $S$--wave. View I assumes that these thresholds force the quark potential to flatten which implies that while in these energy ranges molecular states may be formed there should not be any quark--anti-quark states above these thresholds. View II assumes that the main part of the interaction between two mesons is due to the poles which originate from the $Q\bar Q$ interaction. The properties of the…
Sufficiently inclusive processes, like the deep inelastic scattering (DIS), are described in terms of scale-dependent parton distributions, which correspond to the density of partons with a given longitudinal momentum fraction, integrated over the parton transverse momentum. For less inclusive processes, one needs to consider densities unintegrated over the transverse momentum. This work focuses on the unintegrated gluon distribution (UGD), describing the probability that a gluon can be emitted by a colliding proton, with definite longitudinal fraction and transverse momentum. Through the lept…
Through the spin rearrangement scheme in the heavy quark limit, we have performed a comprehensive investigation of the decay pattern and production mechanism of the hidden beauty di-meson states, which are either composed of a P-wave bottom meson and an S-wave bottom meson or two S-wave bottom mesons. We further extend the corresponding formula to discuss the decay behavior of some charmonium-like states by combining the experimental information with our numerical results. The typical ratios presented in this work can be measured by future experiments like BESIII, Belle, LHCb and the forthcomi…
Charmonium, the spectroscopy of c\bar{c} mesons, has recently enjoyed a renaissance with the discovery of several missing states and a number of unexpected charmonium-like resonances. The discovery of these new states has been made possible by the extremely large data samples made available by the B-factories at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and at KEK in Japan, and at the CESR e^+e^- collider at Cornell. Conventional c\bar{c} states are well described by quark potential models. However, many of these newly discovered charmonium-like mesons do not seem to fit into the conventional c\b…
Recent results of exotic states with heavy quarks, denoted as $XYZ$ states, are presented. The results include searches for the $Y$(4260) in $B$ meson decays, a spin partner of $Y$(4630), and the strange Pentaquark $P_s^+$. In addition, the measurements of the absolute branching fraction of $X$(3872) and search for double $Z_c$ production is discussed.
The analytical forms of the interaction potentials between one S-wave and one P-wave heavy mesons as well as the potentials between two P-wave heavy mesons are deduced based on a chiral quark model. Our results explicitly show the attractive property between two heavy mesons. Consequently, a series of possible molecular states are obtained. It is expected that our study might shed some light on the popular discussions of the newly observed XYZ states.
I discuss the nature of the new charm and charmonium like states observed in the last few years and measurements that can test these assignments. In particular it appears that the X(3943) is the eta_c''(3^1S_0) which can be tested by looking for it in gamma gamma to D\bar{D}^*, the Y(3943) is the chi_{c1}'(2^3P_1) which can be tested by looking for it in D\bar{D} and D\bar{D}^*, the Z(3930) is the chi_{c2}'(2^3P_2) which can be confirmed by looking for it in D\bar{D}^*. If the X(3872) is confirmed to have J^{PC}=1^{++} it is almost certainly a multiquark state while if its J^{PC} is found to b…
We present a systematic study of the shape function for inclusive B-meson decays in the heavy-quark limit, which is based on the QCD equations of motion and heavy-quark symmetry, and takes into account the cusp divergence due to radiative corrections.
Many of the $XYZ$ resonances observed by the Belle, Babar, CLEO and BESIII collaborations in the past decade are difficult to interpret as conventional quark-antiquark mesons, motivating the consideration of scenarios such as multi-quark states, meson molecules, and hybrids. After a brief introduction to QCD sum-rule methods, we provide a brief but comprehensive review of the mass spectra of the quarkonium-like tetraquark states $qQ\bar q\bar Q$, doubly charmed/bottomed tetraquark states $QQ\bar q\bar q$ and the heavy quarkonium hybrid states $\bar QGQ$ in the QCD sum rules approach. Possible …
We present a dynamical approach for description of the multi-quark states that is based on an effective interaction Lagrangian describing the coupling of hadrons to their constituent quarks. First, we explore the consequences of treating the $X(3872)$ meson as a tetraquark bound state. We calculate the decay widths of the observed channels and conclude that for reasonable values of the size parameter of the $X(3872)$ one finds consistency with the available experimental data. Then we have critically checked the tetraquark picture for the $Z_c(3900)$ state by analyzing its strong decays. We fou…
Several observed states close to the $D\bar{D}^*$ and $D^*_{(s)}\bar{D}^*_{(s)}$ thresholds, as the X(3872) and some XYZ particles can be described in terms of a two-meson molecule. Furthermore, doubly charmed states are also predicted. These new states are near the $D^*D^*$ and $D^*D^*_s$ thresholds, % Therefore, if the previous XYZ are molecules, then, there should be doubly charmed mesons with $J^P=1^+$ around the $D^*D^*$ threshold. %For this reason, it is important to evaluate observables related to them. Because of the spin$=1$, they do not decay into $DD$. In this article we compute dec…
The quark model was formulated in 1964 to classify mesons as bound states made of a quark-antiquark pair, and baryons as bound states made of three quarks. For a long time all known mesons and baryons could be classified within this scheme. Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), however, in principle also allows the existence of more complex structures, generically called exotic hadrons or simply exotics. These include four-quark hadrons (tetraquarks and hadronic molecules), five-quark hadrons (pentaquarks) and states with active gluonic degrees of freedom (hybrids), and even states of pure glue (glueb…
The molecular assignments to the three $P_c$ states and the similar production mechanism between the $Λ_b\to P_c+K$ and $B\to XYZ+K$ convince us the $B$ decaying to a charmonium state plus light mesons could be the appropriate production process to search for the charmoniumlike molecular tetraquarks. In this work, we systematically study the interactions between a charmed (charmed-strange) meson and an anti-charmed (anti-charm-strange) meson, which include the $D^{(*)}\bar{D}^{(*)}$, $\bar{D}^{(*)}\bar{D}_1$, $D^{(*)}\bar{D}_2^*$, $D_s^{(*)}\bar{D}_s^{(*)}$, ${D}_s^{(*)}\bar{D}_{s0}^*$, $D_s^{…
We present new compact integrated expressions of QCD spectral functions of heavy-light molecules and four-quark $XYZ$-like states at lowest order (LO) of perturbative (PT) QCD and up to $d=8$ condensates of the Operator Product Expansion (OPE). Then, by including up to next-to-next leading order (N2LO) PT QCD corrections, which we have estimated by assuming the factorization of the four-quark spectral functions, we improve previous LO results from QCD spectral sum rules (QSSR), on the $XYZ$-like masses and decay constants which suffer from the ill-defined heavy quark mass. PT N3LO corrections …
Understanding the nature of the exotic XYZ resonances is one of the open problems in hadronic spectroscopy. Despite the experimental efforts, the structure of these particles still lacks of an accepted theoretical framework. We propose to use the $Z_c^{(\prime)} \to η_c ρ$ decays as a possible discriminant between two of the most popular models: the compact tetraquark and the loosely bound meson molecule. We show that the predictions obtained within the two pictures are significantly different and therefore the proposed decay channel might shed some light on the nature of these states.
We report on a recent QCD based research on hybrid mesons containing $c\bar c$ or $b\bar b$ quarks. We present results for the spectrum, the decay widths to heavy quarkonium, and the role of mixing with the latter. We point out that mixing with heavy quarkonium provides a potentially large source of spin symmetry breaking. We identify candidates to hybrid mesons among the so called XYZ states in the charmonium and bottomonium spectrum.
The past decade witnessed a remarkable proliferation of exotic charmonium-like resonances discovered at accelerators. In particular, the recently observed charged states are clearly not interpretable as q-qbar mesons. Notwithstanding the considerable advances on the experimental side, conflicting theoretical descriptions do not seem to provide a definitive picture about the nature of the so-called XYZ particles. We present here a comprehensive review about this intriguing topic, discussing both those experimental and theoretical aspects which we consider relevant to make further progress in th…
QCD-motivated models for hadrons predict an assortment of "exotic" hadrons that have structures that are more complex than the quark-antiquark mesons and three-quark baryons of the original quark-parton model. These include pentaquark baryons, the six-quark H-dibaryon, and tetraquark, hybrid and glueball mesons. Despite extensive experimental searches, no unambiguous candidates for any of these exotic configurations have been identified. On the other hand, a number of meson states, one that seems to be a proton-antiproton bound state, and others that contain either charmed-anticharmed quark pa…
We review how quark models are able to describe the phenomenology of the charm meson sector. The spectroscopy and decays of charmonium and open charm mesons are described in a particular quark model and compared with the data and the results of other existing models in the literature. A quite reasonable global description of the heavy meson spectra is reached. A new assignment of the $ψ(4415)$ resonance as a 3D state leaving aside the 4S state to the X(4360) is tested through the analysis of the resonance structure in $e^{+}e^{-}$ exclusive reactions around the $ψ(4415)$ energy region. We make…
Many charmonium-like and bottomonium-like $XYZ$ resonances have been observed by the Belle, Babar, CLEO and BESIII collaborations in the past decade. They are difficult to fit in the conventional quark model and thus are considered as candidates of exotic hadrons, such as multi-quark states, meson molecules, and hybrids. In this talk, we first briefly introduce the method of QCD sum rules and then provide a short review of the mass spectra of the quarkonium-like tetraquark states and the heavy quarkonium hybrids in the QCD sum rules approach. Possible interpretations of the $XYZ$ resonances ar…
We present new compact integrated expressions of SU3 breaking corrections to QCD spectral functions of heavy-light molecules and four-quark XYZ-like states at lowest order (LO) of perturbative (PT) QCD and up to d=8 condensates of the OPE. Including N2LO PT corrections in the chiral limit and NLO SU3 PT corrections, which we have estimated by assuming the factorization of the four-quark spectral functions, we improve previous LO results for the XYZ-like masses and decay constants from QCD spectral sum rules. Systematic errors are estimated from a geometric growth of the higher order PT correct…
The generalized parton distributions, introduced nearly a decade ago, have emerged as a universal tool to describe hadrons in terms of quark and gluonic degrees of freedom. They combine the features of form factors, parton densities and distribution amplitudes--the functions used for a long time in studies of hadronic structure. Generalized parton distributions are analogous to the phase-space Wigner quasi-probability function of non-relativistic quantum mechanics which encodes full information on a quantum-mechanical system. We give an extensive review of main achievements in the development …
In heavy quarkonia, hadronic transitions serve as an enlightened probe for the structure and help to establish the understanding of light quark coupling with a heavy degree of freedom. Moreover, in recent years, hadronic transitions revealed remarkable discoveries to identify the new conventional heavy quarkonia and extracting useful information about the so called "XYZ" exotic states. In this contribution, we present our predictions for heavy quark spin symmetry (HQSS) breaking hadronic transitions of higher $S$ and $D$ wave vector charmonia based on our recently proposed model (inspired by N…
Mass relations in heavy hadrons from Jensen-like inequalities
Lanzhou University(兰州大学);Institute of Modern Physics of CAS(中国科学院近代物理研究所);Northwest Normal University(西北师范大学);Yili Normal University(伊犁师范大学);Qinghai Institute of Technology(青海理工学院)