Uncertainties in Estimating the Indirect Production of $B_c$ and Its Excited States Via Top Quark Decays at CERN LHC

Abstract

Main theoretical uncertainties in estimating the indirect production of $(b\bar{c})$-quarkonium ($B^-_c$ meson and its excited states) via top quark decays, $t\to (b\bar{c})+c+W^{+}$, are studied within the non-relativistic QCD framework. It is found that the dimensionless reduced decay width for a particular $(b\bar{c})$-quarkonium state, $\bar\Gamma_{n}=\Gamma_{n} /\Gamma_{t\to W^{+}+b}$, is very sensitive to the $c$-quark mass, while the uncertainties from the $b$-quark and $t$-quark masses are small, where $n$ stands for the eight $(b\bar{c})$-quarkonium states up to ${\cal O}(v^4)$: $|(b\bar{c})(^1S_0)_1>$, $|(b\bar{c})(^3S_1)_1>$, $|(b\bar{c})(^1P_1)_1>$, $|(b\bar{c})(^3P_J)_1>$ (with $J=(1,2,3)$), $|(b\bar{c})(^1S_0)_{8}g>$ and $|(b\bar{c})(^3S_1)_{8}g>$ respectively. About $10^8$ $t\bar{t}$-pairs shall be produced per year at CERN LHC, if adopting the assumption that all the higher Fock states decay to the ground state with 100% probability, then we shall have $(1.038^{+1.353}_{-0.782})\times 10^5$ $B^-_c $ events per year. So the indirect production provides another important way to study the properties of $B^-_c$ meson in comparison to that of the direct hadronic production at CERN LHC.