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Description
Quarkonia, mesons made from a heavy quark and an anti-quark, are considered to be the strong interaction analogues to the hydrogen atom. As such, the spectrum of the cc~ charmonium and bb~ bottomonium hadrons can be calculated using familiar methods from quantum mechanics. Experimentally, below the threshold for the decay into pairs of charm- (bottom-)flavoured hadrons the observed states fit the calculations very well. Above that threshold, however, experiments have found a large number of new, exotic hadrons that do not match our expectations for regular quarkonium hadrons - the XYZ states.
In e+e- annihilation experiments, vector mesons with the same spin and parity as the photon are produced copiously, and indeed exotic vector-states like the Y(4230) and Y(10753) have been reported in both the charmonium and bottomonium regions. Their interpretation is a matter of hot debate and largely depends on our knowledge of the highly excited regular vector-quarkonium states.
In this talk, I will discuss an ongoing effort to shed light on both the regular and exotic vector quarkonia above the open-flavour thresholds using a global analysis of e+e- annihilation data.