On the possibility of testing the two-peak structure of the LHCb hidden-charm strange pentaquark P_cs(4459)⁰ in near-threshold antikaon-induced charmonium production on protons and nuclei

Accounting for the LHCb observation that the reported hidden-charm strange pentaquark P-cs (4459)(0) can split into two substructures, P-cs(4455)(0) and P-cs(4468)(0), with a mass difference of 13 MeV as well as the newly observed hidden-charm pentaquark resonance P-cs(4338)(0) with strangeness, we study within the double-peak scenario for the P-cs(4459)(0) state the near-threshold J/psi meson production from protons and nuclei by considering incoherent direct non-resonant (K-p -> J/psi Lambda) and two-step resonant (K(-)p -> P-csi(0) -> J/psi Lambda, i = 1, 2, 3; P-cs1(0)= P-cs(4338)(0), P-cs2(0) = P-cs(4455)(0), P-cs3(0) = P-cs(4468)(0)) charmonium production processes with the main goal of clarifying the possibility to observe within this scenario both above two substructures contributing to the P-cs(4459)(0) state and the P-cs(4338)0 resonance in this production. We calculate the absolute excitation functions, energy and momentum distributions for the non-resonant, resonant and for the combined (non-resonant plus resonant) production of J/psi mesons on protons as well as on carbon and tungsten target nuclei at near-threshold incident antikaon beam momenta by assuming the spin-parity assignments of the hidden-charm resonances P-cs(4338)(0), P-cs(4455)(0) and P-cs(4468)(0) as J(P) = (1/2)(-), J(P) = (1/2)(-) and J(P) = (3/2)(-) within four different realistic choices for the branching ratios of their decays to the J/psi Lambda mode (0.125, 0.25, 0.5 and 1%) as well as for two options for the branching fraction of their decays to the K- p channel (0.01 and 0.001%). We show that these combined observables reveal clear sensitivity to these scenarios. Hence, they may be an important tool to provide further evidence for the existence of the above strange hidden-charm pentaquark resonances. (c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.