STATUS AND PROSPECTS OF EXCITED BOTTOM MESONS AT LHCB

It has been one of the most significant subjects in the high energy physics experiment to study excited bottom meson spectroscopy. Due to the distinctive mass and lifetimes of heavy quarks, heavy-flavor systems display unique quantum phenomena. As open-flavor hadrons, bottom mesons exhibit a rich spectroscopic structure. Investigating bottom meson spectroscopy deepens our understanding of the confining nature of the strong interaction.

Being the sole LHC experiment specifically designed for heavy-flavor physics, LHCb is dedicated to indirectly searching for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM physics) via the study of rare decays and CP violation of heavy-flavor hadrons, while also serving as an ideal platform for bottom hadron spectroscopy research. In the past 15 years, there have been a great amount of research on excited bottom mesons at LHCb, including the first observations of multiple excited bottom mesons and significantly enhancing measurement precision for known bottom mesons. With the recent completion of LHCb’s first major upgrade and the approaching conclusion of Run 3 operations, this paper summarizes the experiment’s groundbreaking contributions to bottom meson spectroscopy. Furthermore, it provides an outlook on the opportunities for bottom meson spectroscopy from future LHCb detector upgrades.