New charm resonances and $J/\psi$ interactions in a hadron gas

Abstract

In relativistic heavy ion collisions, after the quark gluon plasma (QGP) phase there is a hadron gas (HG) phase. In both phases $J/\psi$ may be formed and destroyed. In this note we study the $J/\psi$ interactions with other mesons in the hadron gas phase. Making use of effective field Lagrangians we obtain the cross sections for the production and absorption processes. With respect to the existing calculations, the improvements introduced here are the inclusion of $K$ and $K^*$'s in the effective Lagrangian approach and the inclusion of processes involving the new exotic charmonium states $Z_c(3900)$ and $Z_c(4025)$. We conclude that the interactions between $J/\psi$ and all the considered mesons reduce the original $J/\psi$ abundance ( determined at the end of the quark gluon plasma phase ) by 20 \% and 24 \% in RHIC and LHC collisions respectively. Consequently, any really significant change in the $J/\psi$ abundance comes from dissociation and regeneration processes in the QGP phase.