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Abstract Despite the f₀(980) hadron having been discovered half a century ago, the question about its quark content has not been settled: it might be an ordinary quark-antiquark ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}$) meson, a tetraquark ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}{{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}q\overline{q}$) exotic state, a kaon-antikaon ($${{\rm{K}}}\overline{{{\rm{K}}}}$$ $K\overline{K}$) molecule, or a quark-antiquark-gluon ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}{{\rm{g}}}$$ $q\overline{q}g$) hybrid. This paper reports strong evidence that the f₀(980) state is an ordinary$${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}$meson, inferred from the scaling of elliptic anisotropies (v₂) with the number of constituent quarks (n_q), as empirically established using conventional hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The f₀(980) state is reconstructed via its dominant decay channel f₀(980) →π⁺π⁻, in proton-lead collisions recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC, and itsv₂is measured as a function of transverse momentum (p_T). It is found that then_q= 2 ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}$state) hypothesis is favored overn_q= 4 ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}{{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}q\overline{q}$or$${{\rm{K}}}\overline{{{\rm{K}}}}$$ $K\overline{K}$states) by 7.7, 6.3, or 3.1 standard deviations in thep_T< 10, 8, or 6 GeV/cranges, respectively, and overn_q= 3 ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}{{\rm{g}}}$$ $q\overline{q}g$hybrid state) by 3.5 standard deviations in thep_T< 8 GeV/crange. This result represents the first determination of the quark content of the f₀(980) state, made possible by using a novel approach, and paves the way for similar studies of other exotic hadron candidates. 

Abstract A search is presented for the pair production of new heavy resonances, each decaying into a top quark (t) or antiquark and a gluon (g). The analysis uses data recorded with the CMS detector from proton–proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13$$\,\text {Te}\hspace{-.08em}\text {V}$$ $\text{Te}\text{V}$at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138$$\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$ ${\text{fb}}^{-1}$. Events with one muon or electron, multiple jets, and missing transverse momentum are selected. After using a deep neural network to enrich the data sample with signal-like events, distributions in the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of all reconstructed objects are analyzed in the search for a signal. No significant deviations from the standard model prediction are found. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the product of cross section and branching fraction squared for the pair production of excited top quarks in the$$\text {t}^{*} \rightarrow {\text {t}} {\text {g}} $$ $\text{t}_{}^{\ast }\to \text{tg}$decay channel. The upper limits range from 120 to 0.8$$\,\text {fb}$$ $\text{fb}$for a$$\text {t}^{*} $$ $\text{t}_{}^{\ast }$with spin-1/2 and from 15 to 1.0$$\,\text {fb}$$ $\text{fb}$for a$$\text {t}^{*} $$ $\text{t}_{}^{\ast }$with spin-3/2. These correspond to mass exclusion limits up to 1050 and 1700$$\,\text {Ge}\hspace{-.08em}\text {V}$$ $\text{Ge}\text{V}$for spin-1/2 and spin-3/2$$\text {t}^{*} $$ $\text{t}_{}^{\ast }$particles, respectively. These are the most stringent limits to date on the existence of$$\text {t}^{*} \rightarrow {\text {t}} {\text {g}} $$ $\text{t}_{}^{\ast }\to \text{tg}$resonances.