Spectrum of the molecular pentaquarks

Abstract

We investigate the mass spectrum of the molecular pentaquarks composed of a baryon and a meson. We establish the underlying relations among the near-threshold interactions of the molecular tetraquark and pentaquark systems. We find the existence of the molecule candidates in the $\Sigma_c\bar{D}^{(\ast)}$, $DD^\ast$, and $D\bar{D}^\ast$ systems indicates a substantial presence of the hadronic molecules in the {\it heavy} baryon plus {\it heavy} meson systems ({\it heavy} refers to the hadrons with the $c$ and/or $s$ quarks). We make an exhaustive prediction of the possible bound/virtual molecular states in the systems: $\Sigma_{c}^{(\ast)}\bar{D}^{(\ast)}$, $\Sigma_{c}^{(\ast)}D^{(\ast)}$, $\Xi_{c}^{(\prime,\ast)}\bar{D}^{(\ast)}$, $\Xi_{c}^{(\prime,\ast)}D^{(\ast)}$, $\Sigma_{c}^{(\ast)}K^{\ast}$, $\Sigma_{c}^{(\ast)}\bar{K}^{\ast}$, $\Xi_{c}^{(\prime,\ast)}K^{\ast}$, $\Xi_{c}^{(\prime,\ast)}\bar{K}^{\ast}$, $\Xi_{cc}^{(\ast)}\bar{D}^{(\ast)}$, $\Xi_{cc}^{(\ast)}D^{(\ast)}$, $\Xi_{cc}^{(\ast)}K^{\ast}$, $\Xi_{cc}^{(\ast)}\bar{K}^{\ast}$, $\Sigma^{(\ast)}\bar{D}^{(\ast)}$, $\Sigma^{(\ast)}D^{(\ast)}$, $\Xi^{(\ast)}\bar{D}^{(\ast)}$, $\Xi^{(\ast)}D^{(\ast)}$, $\Sigma^{(\ast)} K^\ast$, $\Sigma^{(\ast)} \bar{K}^\ast$, $\Xi^{(\ast)} K^\ast$, $\Xi^{(\ast)} \bar{K}^\ast$. Hunting for the predicted states in experiments will significantly deepen our understanding of the formation mechanism of the hadronic molecules, and shed light on the manifestation of flavor symmetry in the low-energy residual strong interactions.