Past exam of the particle physics course of the University of Oxford / 2015 / 3 / e / Solution

The four allowed two-real-photon states are ${\eta }_c$, ${\eta }_c(2S)$, ${\chi }_{c0}$ and ${\chi }_{c2}$. Two photons have $C=+1$, excluding $J/\psi$, $\psi (2S)$ and $h_c$; the Landau-Yang theorem excludes ${\chi }_{c1}$ because $J=1$. Both scalar and pseudoscalar two-photon amplitudes exist, so $0^{++}$ and $0^{-+}$ are allowed. The J/psi meson was discovered first because its $1^{--}$ assignment permits direct, resonantly enhanced single-photon formation in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ and a clean dilepton peak in hadron production. The lighter ${\eta }_c$ cannot be formed by one photon; it needs less favorable production channels and has a broader two-gluon decay.

A spin-zero ${\eta }_c$ at rest has no preferred axis, so $d\Gamma /d{\Omega }_p$ is isotropic after summing final spins. A J/psi meson formed in unpolarized high-energy $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ has transverse $m=\pm 1$ alignment. Its $p\bar{p}$ distribution can be writtenwhere $a,b$ contain the two independent helicity amplitudes. It is generally anisotropic; the approximate massless, helicity-conserving limit has $b\to 0$. The tabulated branching fraction does not fix $a/b$. An ensemble equally populated in all three spin projections would instead be isotropic: alignment of the production ensemble matters.