Revisiting the $P$-wave charmonium radiative decays $h_{c}\rightarrow\gamma\eta^{(\prime)}$ with relativistic corrections

Abstract

The $P$-wave charmonium decays $h_{c}\rightarrow\gamma\eta^{(\prime)}$ are revisited by taking into account relativistic corrections. The decay amplitudes are derived in the Bethe-Salpeter formalism, in which the involved one-loop integrals are evaluated analytically. Intriguingly, from both the quark-antiquark content and the gluonic content of $\eta^{(\prime)}$, the relativistic corrections make significant contributions to the decay rates of $h_{c}\rightarrow\gamma\eta^{(\prime)}$. By comparison with the leading-order contributions from the quark-antiquark content (one-loop level), the ones from the gluonic content (tree level) are also important, which is compatible with the conclusion obtained without relativistic corrections. Usually, for $\eta$ production processes, the predicted branching ratios are sensitive to the angle of $\eta-\eta^{\prime}$ mixing. As an illustration, using the Feldmann-Kroll-Stech result about the mixing angle $\phi=39.3^{\circ}\pm1.0^{\circ}$ as input, we find that the predicted ratio $R_{h_{c}}=\mathcal{B}(h_{c}\rightarrow\gamma\eta)/\mathcal{B}(h_{c}\rightarrow\gamma\eta^{\prime})$ is much smaller than the experiment measurement. While, with $\phi=33.5^{\circ}\pm0.9^{\circ}$ extracted from the asymptotic limit of the $\gamma^{\ast}\gamma-\eta^{\prime}$ transition form factor, we obtain $R_{h_{c}}=30.3\%$ in consistent with $R_{h_{c}}^{exp}=(30.7\pm11.3\pm8.7)\%$. As a cross-check, the mixing angle $\phi=33.8^{\circ}\pm2.5^{\circ}$ is extracted by employing the ratio $R_{h_{c}}$, and a brief discussion on the difference in the determinations of $\phi$ is given.