Production of Charged Heavy Quarkonium-Like States at the LHC and Tevatron

Abstract

We study prompt hadroproduction of the charged bottomonium-like states Zb± (10610) and Zb± (10650), and the charged charmonium-like states Zc±(3900) and Zc±(4020), at the Tevatron and the LHC, provided that these states are S-wave hadronic molecules. Using two Monte Carlo event generators, Herwig and Pythia, to simulate the production of heavy meson pairs, we derive an order-of-magnitude estimate of the production rates for these four particles. Our estimates yield a cross section at the nb level for the Zb (10610) and Zb (10650). The results for the Zc (3900) and Zc (4020) are larger by a factor of 20–30. These cross sections are large enough to be observed, and measurements at hadron colliders in the future will supplement the study using electron-positron collisions, and therefore allow to explore the mysterious nature of these exotic states.