Faccioli, PietroLourenço, CarlosAraújo, MarianaSeixas, JoãoKrätschmer, IlseKnünz, Valentin2019-02-052019-02-052018-03-29http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-5755-7http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/27570A global analysis of ATLAS and CMS measurements reveals that, at mid-rapidity, the directly-produced $\chi_{c1}$, $\chi_{c2}$ and J/$\psi$ mesons have differential cross sections of seemingly identical shapes, when presented as a function of the mass-rescaled transverse momentum, $p_{\rm T}/M$. This identity of kinematic behaviours among S- and P-wave quarkonia is certainly not a natural expectation of non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD), where each quarkonium state is supposed to reflect a specific family of elementary production processes, of significantly different $p_{\rm T}$-differential cross sections. Remarkably, accurate kinematic cancellations among the variegated NRQCD terms (colour singlets and octets) of its factorization expansion can lead to a surprisingly good description of the data. This peculiar tuning of the NRQCD mixtures leads to a clear prediction regarding the $\chi_{c1}$ and $\chi_{c2}$ polarizations, the only observables not yet measured: they should be almost maximally different from one another, and from the J/$\psi$ polarization, a striking exception in the global panorama of quarkonium production. Measurements of the difference between the $\chi_{c1}$, $\chi_{c2}$ and J/$\psi$ polarizations, complementing the observed identity of momentum dependences, represent a decisive probe of NRQCD.engjournal article2019-02-05