The semi-inclusive electroproduction of exotic hadrons, including the Tcc, Pcs, and hidden-charm baryon-antibaryon states, is explored under the assumption that they are S-wave hadronic molecules of a pair of charmed hadrons. We employ the Monte Carlo event generator Pythia to produce the hadron pairs and then bind them together to form hadronic molecules. With the use of such a production mechanism, the semi-inclusive electroproduction rates are estimated at the order-of-magnitude level. Our results indicate that a larger number of Pcs states and ΛcΛ¯c molecules can be produced at the proposed electron-ion colliders in China (EicC) and the US (EIC). The results also suggest that the Tcc states and other hidden-charm baryon-antibaryon states can be searched for at EIC. Besides, the potential 24-GeV upgrade of the Continuous Beam Accelerator Facility at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility can play an important role in the search for the hidden-charm tetraquark and pentaquark states due to its high luminosity.

• Received 10 August 2022
• Accepted 28 November 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.106.114026

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

Published by the American Physical Society