Observation and branching fraction measurements of $J/ψ\to p \bar p K^0_S K^0_S$ and $ψ(3686) \to p \bar p K^0_S K^0_S$

Abstract

Using $(10.087\pm0.044)\times10^9$ $J/ψ$ events and $(2.712\pm0.014)\times10^9$ $ψ(3686)$ events collected by the BESIII detector operating at the BEPCII collider, we report the first observation of the hadronic decays of $J/ψ\to p \bar p K^0_S K^0_S$ and $ψ(3686) \to p \bar p K^0_S K^0_S$, both with statistical significance greater than $10σ$. Their branching fractions are determined to be $\mathcal{B}(J/ψ\to p \bar p K^0_S K^0_S)=(1.60 \pm 0.02 \pm 0.09)\times10^{-5}$ and $\mathcal{B}(ψ(3686) \to p \bar p K^0_S K^0_S)=(3.93 \pm 0.24 \pm 0.34)\times10^{-6}$. The ratio of their branching fractions is $\mathcal{B}(ψ(3686) \to p \bar p K^0_S K^0_S)/\mathcal{B}(J/ψ\to p \bar p K^0_S K^0_S)=(24.6 \pm 1.5 \pm 2.1)\%$, which deviates from theoretical expectation by 4.6$σ$. Here the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. We have also examined the $p\bar p$ invariant mass distributions in these decays, and no significant enhancement around the $p \bar p$ near threshold is found.