Forming molecular states with hadronic rescattering

A method for modelling the prompt production of molecular states using the hadronic rescattering framework of the general-purpose Pythia event generator is introduced. Production cross sections of possible exotic hadronic molecules via hadronic rescattering at the LHC are calculated for the $$\chi _{c1}(3872)$$ χ c 1 ( 3872 ) resonance, a possible tetraquark state, as well as three possible pentaquark states, $$P_c^+(4312)$$ P c + ( 4312 ) , $$P_c^+(4440)$$ P c + ( 4440 ) , and $$P_c^+(4457)$$ P c + ( 4457 ) . For the $$P_c^+$$ P c + states, the expected cross section from $$\Lambda _b$$ Λ b decays is compared to the hadronic-rescattering production. The $$\chi _{c1}(3872)$$ χ c 1 ( 3872 ) cross section is compared to the fiducial $$\chi _{c1}(3872)$$ χ c 1 ( 3872 ) cross-section measurement by LHCb and found to contribute at a level of $${\mathcal {O}({1\%})}$$ O ( 1 % ) . Finally, the expected yields of $$\mathrm {P_c^{+}}$$ P c + production from hadronic rescattering during Run 3 of LHCb are estimated. The prompt background is found to be significantly larger than the prompt $$\mathrm {P_c^{+}}$$ P c + signal from hadronic rescattering.