Diffractive ��_c and ��_b productions by neutrinos via neutral currents

We report a first theoretical study for neutrino-induced diffractive productions of heavy pseudoscalar mesons, ��_c and ��_b, off a nucleon. Based on factorization formalism for exclusive processes, we evaluate the forward diffractive production cross section in perturbative QCD in terms of the light-cone Q\bar{Q} wave functions (WFs) of ��_{c,b} mesons and the gluon distribution of the nucleon. The light-cone WFs of the ��_c (��_b) meson are constructed to satisfy the spin symmetry relations with those of the J/��(��) meson. The diffractive ��_c production is governed by the axial-vector coupling of the longitudinally polarized Z boson to Q\bar{Q} pair, and the resulting ��_c production rate is larger than the J/��one by one order of magnitude. We also discuss the production of bottomonium ��_b, which shows up for higher beam energy.

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