Analysis of three-body hadronic $D$-meson decays

Abstract

Motivated by recent experimental advances in three-body hadronic $D$ decays from BESIII, we present a systematic analysis of $D_{(s)} \to P_1 (V \to) P_2 P_3 $ decay processes, where $V$ denotes vector resonances ($\rho, K^*, \omega$, $\phi$) and $P_{1,2,3}$ are light pseudoscalar mesons ($\pi,K, \eta^{(\prime)}$). Using the factorization-assisted topological-amplitude (FAT) approach we calculate the intermediate subprocesses $D_{(s)} \to P_1 V$, incorporating relativistic Breit-Wigner distributions to model the subsequent $V \to P_2 P_3$ strong decays. By comprehensively including all relevant resonances ($\rho, K^*, \omega, \phi$), we calculate branching fractions for these decay modes as well as the Breit-Wigner-tail effects in $D_{(s)} \to P_1 (\omega \to) KK$ processes. Our framework comprehensively incorporates both factorizable and nonfactorizable contributions, significantly improving theoretical predictions in the nonperturbative regime where conventional methods face challenges due to the limited mass scale of charm mesons. The FAT approach yields results in good agreement with experimental data, demonstrating its effectiveness in capturing nonfactorizable contributions with improved precision. Our predictions for yet-unobserved decay modes, particularly those with branching fractions in the order of $10^{-4}$ to $10^{-3}$, are expected to be tested in future high-precision experiments at BESIII and LHCb.