Spin symmetry predictions for heavy quarkonia alignment

Abstract

We investigate the implications of spin symmetry for heavy quarkonia production and decay. We first compare spin symmetry predictions for charmonia and bottomonia radiative transitions with data and find they agree quite well. We next use spin symmetry along with nonrelativistic QCD power counting to determine the leading order alignment of P and D-wave orthoquarkonia that are produced through gluon fragmentation. Finally, we discuss a mechanism which may resolve the current factor of 30 discrepancy between theoretical predictions and experimental measurements of prompt $ψ'$ production at the Tevatron. This mechanism involves gluon fragmentation to a subleading Fock component in the $ψ'$ wavefunction and yields 100\% transversely aligned $ψ'$'s to lowest order. Observation of such a large alignment would provide strong support for this resolution to the $ψ'$ problem.