Strong and radiative decays of excited vector mesons and predictions for a new $\phi(1930)$ resonance

Abstract

We study the phenomenology of two nonets of excited vector mesons, $\{\rho(1450)$, $K^{\ast}(1410)$, $\omega(1420)$, $\phi(1680)\}$ and $\{\rho(1700),$ $K^{\ast}(1680),\omega(1650),$ $\phi(???)\},$ which (roughly) correspond to radially excited $2^{3}S_{1}$ and to orbitally excited $1^{3}D_{1}$ vector mesons. We evaluate the strong and radiative decays of these mesons into pseudoscalar and ground-state vector mesons by using an effective relativistic QFT model based on flavour symmetry. We compare decay widths and branching ratios with various experimental results listed in the PDG. An overall agreement of theory with experiment reinforces the standard quark-antiquark assignment of the resonances mentioned above. Predictions for not yet measured quantities are also made. In particular, we shall also make predictions for the not-yet discovered $s\bar{s}$ state of the $1^{3}D_{1}$ nonet, denoted as $\phi(???)$. Its mass can be estimated to be about $1930$ MeV, hence we shall call this putative state $\phi(1930).$ Its main decays are into $KK^{\ast}(892)$ (about $200$ MeV) and $KK$ (about $100$ MeV). Since this state couples also to $\gamma\eta,$ it can be searched in the near future in the photoproduction-based experiments GlueX and CLAS12 at Jefferson Lab.