An alternative way to decipher the nature of the doubly charmed tetraquark $T_{cc}(3875)^+$: its antiparticle $T_{{\bar c}{\bar c}}(3875)^-$ photoproduction off nuclei near threshold

Abstract

We study the inclusive photoproduction of $T_{{\bar c}{\bar c}}(3875)^-$ mesons (which are the antiparticles of the doubly charmed tetraquarks $T_{cc}(3875)^+$ discovered recently by the LHCb Collaboration) from nuclei in the near-threshold energy region within the nuclear spectral function approach by considering incoherent direct (${\gamma}p(n) \to D^+(D^0){T_{{\bar c}{\bar c}}(3875)^-}\Lambda^+_c$) photon--nucleon $T_{{\bar c}{\bar c}}(3875)^-$ creation processes as well as five possible different scenarios for their internal structure with the main goal of clarifying the possibility to decipher this structure (and, hence, that of $T_{cc}(3875)^+$) in photoproduction via integral and differential observables. We calculate the absolute and relative excitation functions for $T_{{\bar c}{\bar c}}(3875)^-$ production off $^{12}$C and $^{184}$W target nuclei at near-threshold photon beam energies of 30--38 GeV, the absolute differential cross sections for their production off these target nuclei at laboratory polar angles of 0$^{\circ}$--10$^{\circ}$ as well as the A and momentum dependences of the relative (transparency ratios) cross sections for $T_{{\bar c}{\bar c}}(3875)^-$ production at photon energy of 35 GeV within the adopted scenarios for the $T_{{\bar c}{\bar c}}(3875)^-$ meson intrinsic structure. We demonstrate that the absolute and relative observables considered show a certain sensitivity to these scenarios. Therefore, the measurement of such observables in future experiments at the proposed high-luminosity electron-ion colliders EIC and EicC in the US and China in the near-threshold energy region might shed light on the $T_{cc}(3875)^+$ internal structure.