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Improved perturbative QCD study of the decay Bc+→ηcL+

Wen-Jing Zhang and Xin Liu

Phys. Rev. D 113, 056023 – Published 25 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8l7c-mj4m

Abstract

We perform an improved perturbative QCD study of the decays Bc+→ηcL+, where L denotes the light ground-state pseudoscalar, vector mesons and the corresponding p-wave scalar, axial-vector, and tensor ones, and predict their branching ratios (BRs) associated with relative ratios at leading order in the strong coupling αs. Our results BR(Bc+→ηcπ+)=(2.03−0.41+0.53)×10−3 and BR(Bc+→ηcπ+)/BR(Bc+→J/ψπ+)=1.74−0.50+0.66 are consistent with several available predictions in different approaches within uncertainties. Inputting the measured ηc→pp¯ and ηc→π+π−(π+π−,K+K−,pp¯) BRs with p here being a proton, we derive the multibody Bc+→ηc(π,ρ)+ BRs through secondary decay chains via resonance ηc under the narrow-width approximation, which might facilitate the (near-)future tests of Bc→ηc decays. Under the qq¯ assignment for light scalars, different to Bc decaying into J/ψ plus a scalar meson and other Bc+→ηcL+ modes, surprisingly small ΔS=0 BRs around O(10−7−10−9) and highly large ratios near O(102) between the ΔS=1 and ΔS=0 BRs are found in the Bc decays to ηc plus light scalars, with S being strange number. Many large BRs and interesting ratios presented in this work could be tested by the Large Hadron Collider experiments, which would help us to examine the reliability of this improved perturbative QCD formalism for Bc-meson decays and further understand the QCD dynamics in the considered decay modes as well as in the related hadrons.

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