title: Identifying multiquark hadrons from heavy ion collisions.
abstract: Identifying hadronic molecular states and/or hadrons with multiquark components either with or without exotic quantum numbers is a long-standing challenge in hadronic physics. We suggest that studying the production of these hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions offers a promising resolution to this problem as yields of exotic hadrons are expected to be strongly affected by their structures. Using the coalescence model for hadron production, we find that, compared to the case of a nonexotic hadron with normal quark numbers, the yield of an exotic hadron is typically an order of magnitude smaller when it is a compact multiquark state and a factor of 2 or more larger when it is a loosely bound hadronic molecule. We further find that some of the newly proposed heavy exotic states could be produced and realistically measured in these experiments.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics and Applied Physics, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea.
authors.forename: Sungtae
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Takenori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Furumoto
authors.forename: Tetsuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hyodo
authors.forename: Daisuke
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jido
authors.forename: Che Ming
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.forename: Su Houng
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ohnishi
authors.forename: Takayasu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sekihara
authors.forename: Shigehiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yasui
authors.forename: Koichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yazaki