Hidden-Heavy Pentaquarks and Where to Find Them

Fareed Alasiri, Eric Braaten, Roberto Bruschini

Published: 2025/7/9

Abstract

We provide a simple explanation for the observed hidden-charm pentaquarks as bound states in Born-Oppenheimer potentials. We identify $P_{c\bar{c}}(4312)^+$, $P_{c\bar{c}}(4380)^+$, $P_{c\bar{c}}(4440)^+$, and $P_{c\bar{c}}(4457)^+$ as the heavy-quark spin states in a quartet of $c \bar{c}$ pentaquarks with $J^P$ quantum numbers $\frac{1}{2}^-$, $\frac{3}{2}^-$, $\frac{3}{2}^-$, and $\frac{5}{2}^-$. The quantum numbers of $P_{c\bar{c}}(4457)^+$ differ from most previous predictions. We identify $P_{c\bar{c}s}(4338)^0$ and $P_{c\bar{c}s}(4459)^0$ as spin states in a triplet of $c \bar{c}s$ pentaquarks with quantum numbers $\frac{1}{2}^-$, $\frac{1}{2}^-$, and $\frac{3}{2}^-$. We explain why $P_{c\bar{c}}(4380)^+$ is the only observed hidden-charm pentaquark with a large width.