Studying exotic hadrons in high energy nuclear collisions

¹ Key Laboratory of Atomic and Subatomic Structure and Quantum Control (MOE), Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Structure and Fundamental Interactions of Matter, Institute of Quantum Matter, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China
² Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory of Quantum Matter, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Nuclear Science, Southern Nuclear Science Computing Center, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China
³ Southern Center for Nuclear-Science Theory (SCNT), Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huizhou 516000, China
⁴ Physics Department and Center for Exploration of Energy and Matter, Indiana University, 2401 N Milo B. Sampson Lane, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA

^* e-mail: guoxy@m.scnu.edu.cn
^** e-mail: liaoji@indiana.edu
^*** e-mail: hxing@m.scnu.edu.cn

Published online: 26 June 2024

Abstract

Studies of exotic hadrons such as the χ_c1 (3872) state provide crucial insights into the fundamental force governing the strong interaction dynamics, with an emerging new frontier to investigate their production in high energy nuclear collisions where a partonic medium is present. This contribution discusses the production mechanisms of exotic hadrons in such collisions and analyzes novel e_ects from the partonic medium, demonstrating the potential to use heavy ion measurements for deciphering their internal structure and understanding their in-medium evolutions.