Effective Field Theories to understand and predict the Nature of the XYZ Exotic Hadrons

Introduction

Two decades ago, the field of strongly interacting particles entered a golden age with the discovery of exotic hadrons labeled as XYZs. The breakthrough fueled a surge in experimental research, uncovering dozens of states that appear to lie outside the conventional quark model, although some still require experimental confirmation.

Theoretical Investigations

The plethora of new states has sparked intense theoretical investigations into new forms of matter, such as:

• Quark-gluon hybrids
• Mesonic molecules
• Tetraquarks

This makes it one of the most significant open problems in particle physics. Despite the progress, unresolved patterns of masses, decays, and transitions above open-flavor thresholds persist and have deepened the mystery surrounding these exotics.

Importance of Heavy Ion Collisions

The intriguing details of production and suppression observed in heavy ion collisions elevated the importance of these studies to probe their nature.

Project Overview

With EFT-XYZ, I intend to develop for the first time a comprehensive and unified description of these exotics rooted in quantum field theory, going beyond existing models.

Methodology

On the basis of scale separation, I construct a general nonrelativistic effective field theory treatment. Scale factorization introduces systematicity and simplicity, allowing model-independent predictions.

Computational Tools

The dynamics contained in the nonperturbative low energy correlators is addressed with new and tailored lattice QCD computational tools. By using an open quantum system framework and lattice QCD input, the effective field theory can describe the XYZ production in heavy ion collisions.

Expected Impact

EFT-XYZ is poised to make breakthroughs in calculating the properties, dynamics, and interactions of the XYZ in various environments. It holds the promise to unravel the nature of these new states, having an impact on both experiments and our understanding of strongly correlated systems, with interdisciplinary implications for other fields.

Conclusion

EFT-XYZ's success is related to the recent advancements in the aforementioned fields in which I played a pivotal role.