Search for new hadronic decays of $h_{c}$ and observation of $h_{c}\to p\bar{p}η$
hep-ex
/ Authors
M. Ablikim, M. N. Achasov, P. Adlarson, S. Ahmed, M. Albrecht, R. Aliberti, A. Amoroso, M. R. An, Q. An, X. H. Bai
and 509 more authors
Y. Bai, O. Bakina, R. Baldini Ferroli, I. Balossino, Y. Ban, K. Begzsuren, N. Berger, M. Bertani, D. Bettoni, F. Bianchi, J. Bloms, A. Bortone, I. Boyko, R. A. Briere, H. Cai, X. Cai, A. Calcaterra, G. F. Cao, N. Cao, S. A. Cetin, J. F. Chang, W. L. Chang, G. Chelkov, D. Y. Chen
/ Abstract
A search for the hadronic decays of the $h_{c}$ meson to the final states $p\bar{p}π^{+}π^{-}π^{0}$, $p\bar{p}η$, and $p\bar{p}π^0$ via the process $ψ(3686) \to π^{0}{h_c}$ is performed using $(4.48\pm0.03)\times10^{8}$ $ψ(3686)$ events collected with the BESIII detector. The decay channel $h_{c}\to p\bar{p}η$ is observed for the first time with a significance greater than $5σ$ and a branching fraction of $\left( {6.41 \pm 1.74 \pm 0.53 \pm 1.00} \right) \times {10^{ -4}}$, where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and that from the branching fraction of $ψ(3686)\toπ^{0}h_{c}$. Strong evidence for the decay ${h_c} \to p\bar{p}{π^+}{π^-}{π^0}$ is found with a significance of $4.9σ$ and a branching fraction of $\left( {3.84 \pm 0.83 \pm0.69} \pm 0.58 \right) \times {10^{ - 3}}$. The significances include systematic uncertainties. No clear signal of the decay $h_c\to p\bar{p}π^{0}$ is found, and an upper limit of $6.59\times 10^{-4}$ on its branching fraction is set at the 90% confidence level.