The antinucleon-nucleon quasi-bound states: J/psi and atomic evidence

Abstract

The measurements of J/psi decays into photon, proton and antiproton show a strong enhancement at the proton-antiproton threshold not seen in the decays into neutral pion, proton and antiproton. What is the nature of this enhancement? A natural interpretation can be performed in terms of a classical model of nucleon-antinucleon interactions based on G-parity transformation. The observed proton-antiproton structure is the consequence of the strong attraction in the singlet S-wave state related predominantly to pion exchanges. Similar attractions generate near threshold: an isospin-zero virtual (or quasi-bound) state in singlet S-wave, an isospin-one quasi-bound state in triplet P-wave with total angular momentum one and an isospin-zero resonance in triplet P-wave with total angular momentum zero. These P-wave structures find support in the antiproton-atomic data.