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Fully charmed tetraquark production in forward rapidity pp collisions at LHC and FCC energies

Francesco G. Celiberto1,*, André V. Giannini2,3,†, Victor P. Gonçalves4,‡, and Yuri N. Lima5,§

  • *Contact author: francesco.celiberto@uah.es
  • †Contact author: AndreGiannini@ufgd.edu.br
  • ‡Contact author: barros@ufpel.edu.br
  • §Contact author: ylima@if.usp.br
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 054014 – Published 9 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/tq47-w7jn

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the production of a fully charmed tetraquark state T4c in pp collisions at forward rapidities through the fragmentation mechanism considering the color glass condensate formalism and the solution of the running coupling Balitsky-Kovchegov equation. The contributions of gluon- and charm-initiated processes are taken into account, and the impact of an intrinsic charm component in the proton’s wave function is estimated. Predictions for the transverse momentum distribution of the T4c state are presented assuming different rapidities, distinct quantum numbers of the state and center-of-mass energies. Our results indicate that the higher cross section is associated with the production of a tensor state T4c(2++), which is dominated by the gluon-initiated process. In contrast, the production of the axial-vector state T4c(1+−) is dominated by the charm-initiated process and is very sensitive to the presence (or not) of an intrinsic charm.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 054014– Published 9 March, 2026
  • Received 30 November 2025
  • Accepted 24 February 2026
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