• Accepted Paper

Accessing exotic hadronic states via charmed-meson femtoscopy in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Jiaxing Zhao, Taesoo Song, Elena Bratkovskaya, and Jörg Aichelin

Phys. Rev. C - Accepted 26 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8tx7-w52f

Abstract

The two-particle correlation function measured in femtoscopic analyses provides access to the interaction potentials between emitted particles. This offers a unique opportunity to investigate interactions among charmed mesons and to explore the nature of possible exotic hadronic states. In this Letter, we study femtoscopic correlations of various charmed-meson pairs in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The dynamical evolution of the system and charm hadron production are described within the Parton–Hadron–String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach, while the correlation functions are computed using the Correlation Analysis Tool using the Schrödinger equation (CATS). We demonstrate that heavy-ion collisions provide a significantly more favorable environment than pp collisions for accessing charmed meson femtoscopic correlations. This arises from enhanced charm-quark production, reduced relative momenta due to in-medium energy loss, and a strong suppression of initial-state correlations. Our results indicate that femtoscopic measurements in heavy-ion collisions offer a sensitive probe of charmed meson interactions and possible hadronic molecular states.

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