Production and absorption of exotic bottomonium-like states in high energy heavy ion collisions

Abstract

We investigate the production and absorption of $Z_b (10610)$ and $Z_b ^{\prime}(10650)$ states in a hadronic medium, via the processes $\bar{B}^{(*)} B^{(*)} \rightarrow \pi Z_b ^{(\prime)} $ and the corresponding inverses reactions. We use effective field Lagrangians based on an $SU(4)$-extension of the hidden gauge formalism to account for the couplings between light and heavy mesons, and a phenomenological Lagrangian involving the $ B^{\ast} B^{(\ast)} Z_b ^{(\prime)}$ vertices. The absorption cross sections are found to be much larger than the production ones.