Search For Eta Mesic He-3 With The Wasa-at-cosy Facility In The Pd -> (3)he2 Gamma And Pd -> (3)he6 Gamma Reaction

We report on the experimental search for the bound state of an eta meson and He-3 nucleus performed using the WASA-at-COSY detector setup. In order to search for the eta-mesic nucleus decay, the pd -> (3)He2(gamma) and pd -> (3)He6 gamma channels have been analysed. These reactions manifest the direct decay of the ti meson bound in a He-3 nucleus. This non-mesonic decay channel has been considered for the first time. When taking into account only statistical errors, the obtained excitation functions reveal a slight indication for a possible bound state signal corresponding to a He-3-eta nucleus width Gamma above 20 MeV and binding energy B-s between 0 and 15 MeV. However, the determined cross sections are consistent with zero in the range of the systematic uncertainty. Therefore, as final result we estimate only the upper limit for the cross section of the eta-mesic He-3 nucleus formation followed by the eta meson decay which varies between 2 nb and 15 nb depending on possible bound state parameters. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.