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  • Open Access

Interpreting the X(2370) and X(2600) as light tetraquark states

Qi-Nan Wang1,2,*, Ding-Kun Lian3,†, and Wei Chen4,5,‡

  • 1College of Physical Science and Technology, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121013, China
  • 2Editorial Department of Journal, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121013, China
  • 3School of Physics, Southeast University, Nanjing 210094, China
  • 4School of Physics, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
  • 5Southern Center for Nuclear-Science Theory (SCNT), Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huizhou 516000, Guangdong Province, China

  • *Contact author: wangqinan@bhu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: liandk@mail2.sysu.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: chenwei29@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Phys. Rev. D 112, 034010 – Published 14 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/tr1v-lly8

Abstract

Inspired by the states X(2370) and X(2600) reported by the BESIII Collaboration, we systematically investigate the mass spectra of light compact tetraquark states with configurations udu¯d¯, usu¯s¯, and sss¯s¯ in the JPC=0−+ and 2−+ channels using the QCD sum rules approach. To effectively describe these tetraquark states, we construct appropriate interpolating tetraquark currents featuring three Lorentz indices while avoiding derivative operators. Through meticulous calculations of correlation functions up to dimension 10 condensates, we extract the mass spectra for both 0−+ and 2−+ states by employing the projection operator technique. Our results indicate that the masses of light tetraquarks span 1.5–2.5  GeV for 0−+ states and 2.4–2.7 GeV for 2−+ states. Notably, our analysis suggests that the X(2370) state could be interpreted as a 0−+  usu¯s¯ or sss¯s¯ tetraquark state, while the X(2600) state is likely to be a 2−+  usu¯s¯ tetraquark. These intriguing findings warrant further detailed investigation in future studies to better understand the nature of these states.

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