Heavy-Quark Hybrid Mass Splittings: Hyperfine and “Ultrafine”

Abstract

It is argued that the heavy-quark limit of QCD requires a certain combination of hyperfine mass splittings in heavy-quark hybrid-meson multiplets to be unusually small. This observation will assist in the exploration of the heavy-quark hybrid spectrum at facilities such as PANDA. Alternatively, a large measured value for this mass splitting indicates that at least one member of the multiplet must contain significant light-quark degrees of freedom.