Reanalysis of exclusive charmonium production at the $B$ factories

Abstract

In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of the next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) QCD corrections to the exclusive processes $e^{+}e^{-}\to J/ψ+η_{c}$, $e^{+}e^{-}\to J/ψ+χ_{cJ}$, $e^{+}e^{-}\to η_{c}+γ$, and $e^{+}e^{-}\to χ_{cJ}+γ$ $(J=0,1,2)$ at the $B$ factories, comparing perturbative expansions truncated at the amplitude level and squared-amplitude level. Our results show that the amplitude-level prescription improves the perturbative convergence, with the NNLO/LO ratios lying closer to the corresponding NLO/LO ratios than those in the squared-amplitude-level prescription. This improvement is particularly pronounced for $e^{+}e^{-}\toχ_{c2}+γ$, where the NNLO prediction is about 27\% of the LO result in the amplitude-level prescription, compared with only 12\% in the squared-amplitude-level prescription. The amplitude-level prescription also reduces the residual renormalization scale dependence, particularly for the $P$-wave channels. Finally, the NNLO predictions are generally in good agreement with the available Belle and BaBar measurements and have central values closer to the data than those obtained with the squared-amplitude-level prescription. For channels with only upper limits, the predictions from both prescriptions are consistent with the experimental constraints, except for $e^{+}e^{-}\toη_c+γ$, where both NNLO predictions remain above the current upper limit.