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Abstract

In the heavy quarkonium decay process $ V \to ggg $ ($ V=J/\psi, \Upsilon $), making a definite prediction including relativistic corrections has so far remained a significant challenge. In this work, we study this decay process by taking into account the relativistic corrections in the Bethe-Salpeter formalism, where the relativistic bound-state wave function of quarkonium is obtained by solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation under the covariant instantaneous ansatz. Through analytical calculation, we find that some polarized decay widths vanish due to the helicity selection rule, which suppresses the corresponding helicity amplitudes. Owing to helicity flip symmetry and phase space symmetry, the nonvanishing polarized decay widths are not all independent; they are related through a set of symmetry relations. Then we obtain the unpolarized decay width formula $\Gamma(V \to ggg)=\frac{80(\pi^{2}-9)\alpha_{s}^{3}N_{V}^{2}\beta_{V}^{3}}{81\pi^{9/2} M } (1-\kappa\frac{\beta_{V}^{2}}{M^{2}})$, where the factor $\kappa\frac{\beta_{V}^{2}}{M^{2}}$ arises from the relativistic corrections with $\kappa\equiv\frac{3(112+25\pi^{2})}{16(\pi^{2}-9)}$. Furthermore, including both relativistic and QCD radiative corrections within the factorization assumption, our predictions of $\mathcal{B}(V \to ggg)$ and $\mathcal{B}(V \to e^{+}e^{-})$ agree well with their experimental data. As a crossing check, with the experimental value of the ratio $R_{V} = \frac{\Gamma(V \to ggg)}{\Gamma(V \to e^{+}e^{-})}$ and our result for $R_{V}$, we extract $\alpha_{s}(M_{J/\psi}/2)=0.31$ and $\alpha_{s}(M_{\Upsilon}/2)=0.20$, respectively.