Light Meson Spectrum Research Articles

Meson spectroscopy from spectral densities in lattice gauge theories

Spectral densities encode nonperturbative information that enters the calculation of a plethora of physical observables in strongly coupled field theories. Phenomenological applications encompass aspects of standard-model hadronic physics, observable at current colliders, as well as correlation functions characterizing new physics proposals, testable in future experiments. By making use of numerical data produced in a Sp(4) lattice gauge theory with matter transforming in an admixture of fundamental and 2-index antisymmetric representations of the gauge group, we perform a systematic study to demonstrate the effectiveness of recent technological progress in the reconstruction of spectral densities.To this purpose, we write and test new software packages that use energy-smeared spectral densities to analyze the mass spectrum of mesons. We assess the effectiveness of different smearing kernels and optimize the smearing parameters to the characteristics of available lattice ensembles. For concreteness, we analyze the Sp(4) lattice gauge theory with matter transforming in an admixture of fundamental and 2-index antisymmetric representations of the gauge group. We generate new ensembles for the theory in consideration, with lattices that have a longer extent in the time direction with respect to the spatial ones. We run our tests on these ensembles, obtaining new results about the spectrum of light mesons and their excitations. We make available our algorithm and software for the extraction of spectral densities, that can be applied to theories with other gauge groups, including the theory of strong interactions (QCD) governing hadronic physics in the standard model. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Recent Highlights on Meson Spectroscopy at BESIII

Despite mesons being one of the longest known type of particles, there are still many open questions. Besides well understood states that can be clearly attributed to meson nonets, there are many candidates which could have an exotic nature instead. Such exotic particles e.g. glueballs, hybrids and tetraquarks can be favorably studied in clean, gluon rich environments. The BE-SIII experiment, which is in operation at the BEPCII electron-positron collider in Beijing since 2009, has collected world leading high statistic data samples in the charmonium region. This allows to study rare reactions that are considered to be suppressed. This offers unique possibilities to study exotic QCD states in the charmonium sector, but also the light meson spectrum which can be ac cessed via charmonium decays. Especially radiative J/ψ decays offer a gluon rich environment in which glueballs and hybrid states can be expected. Since these states are often hard to identify and disentangle, partial wave analysis are needed to determine the different contributions.

Progress in the Partial-Wave Analysis Methods at COMPASS

Abstract. We study the excitation spectrum of light and strange mesons in diffractive scattering. We identify different hadron resonances through partial wave analysis, which inherently relies on analysis models. Besides statistical uncertainties, the model dependence of the analysis introduces dominant sys tematic uncertainties. We discuss several of their sources for the π−π−π+ and K0S K¯ final states and present methods to reduce them. We have developed a new approach exploiting a-priori knowledge of signal continuity over adjacent final-state-mass bins to stably fit a large pool of partial-waves to our data, al lowing a clean identification of very small signals in our large data sets. For two-body final states of scalar particles, such as K0S K¯, mathematical ambigui ties in the partial-wave decomposition lead to the same intensity distribution for different combinations of amplitude values. We will discuss these ambiguities and present solutions to resolve or at least reduce the number of possible so lutions. Resolving these issues will allow for a complementary analysis of the aJ-like resonance sector in these two final states.

Exotic Meson candidates in COMPASS data

Abstract. One of the prime goals of the COMPASS experiment at CERN is the study of the light meson spectrum, with a particular emphasis on the search for exotic states. The focus of this paper is on signals of the lightest hybrid can didate π1(1600) with spin-exotic quantum numbers JPC = 1−+ in several decay channels such as π−π+π−, rwπ−, ωπ−π0, π−π+π−η, and KSKSπ. In addition, we highlight new results for the K−π+π− final state, which indicate a supernumerary state with respect to the constituent quark model with JP = 0−.

Regge trajectories for the light diquarks

We attempt to present an unified description of the light meson spectra and the light diquark spectra by applying the Regge trajectory approach. However, we find that the direct application of the linear Regge trajectory formula for the light mesons and baryons fails. To address this issue, we fit the experimental data of light meson spectra and the light diquark spectra obtained by other theoretical approaches. By considering the light quark mass and the parameter C in the Cornell potential, we provide a provisional Regge trajectory formula. We also crudely estimate the masses of the light diquarks (ud), (us), and (ss), and find that they agree with other theoretical results. The diquark Regge trajectory not only becomes a new and very simple approach for estimating the spectra of the light diquarks, but also can explicitly show the behavior of the masses with respect to l or nr\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$n_r$$\\end{document}. Moreover, it is expected that the diquark Regge trajectory can provide a simple method for investigating the ρ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\rho $$\\end{document}-mode excitations of baryons, tetraquarks and pentaquarks containing diquarks.

Neutral pseudoscalar and vector meson masses under strong magnetic fields in an extended NJL model: Mixing effects

Mixing effects on the mass spectrum of light neutral pseudoscalar and vector mesons in the presence of an external uniform magnetic field $\vec B$ are studied in the framework of a two-flavor NJL-like model. The model includes isoscalar and isovector couplings both in the scalar-pseudoscalar and vector sectors, and also incorporates flavor mixing through a 't Hooft-like term. Numerical results for the $B$ dependence of meson masses are compared with present lattice QCD results. In particular, it is shown that the mixing between pseudoscalar and vector meson states leads to a significant reduction of the mass of the lightest state. The role of chiral symmetry and the effect of the alignment of quark magnetic moments in the presence of the magnetic field are discussed.

News from the light and strange meson sector

Recent high-quality data sets from various experiments grant new insights into the excitation spectrum of light mesons, which are composed of up, down, and strange quarks. In the non-strange light-meson sector, many recent experimental and theory efforts are focused on the search for so-called exotic states, which are states beyond the na¨ıve constituent quark-model. To this end, various potential decay modes of exotic states are studied at experiments such as GlueX or COMPASS. In addition, there is recent progress in the understanding of so-called non-resonant processes, which act as background in searches for light mesons, as well as in the prediction of light mesons from lattice QCD. While the non-strange light-meson spectrum is already mapped out rather well, many predicted strange mesons have not yet been observed experimentally or need further confirmation. Recent high-precision data from experiments such as LHCb and BESIII allow us to study strange mesons in heavy-meson decays. Alternatively, strange mesons are studied in diffractive scattering of high-energy kaon beams. The so far world’s largest data set on the diffractively produced K−π −π + final state was measured by the COMPASS experiment. A recent analysis of this data covers a large variety of strange mesons over a wide mass range in a single, self-consistent analysis

Initial-State Temperature of Light Meson Emission Source From Squared Momentum Transfer Spectra in High-Energy Collisions

The squared momentum transfer spectra of light mesons, π0, π+, η, and ρ0, produced in high-energy virtual photon-proton (γ*p) → meson + nucleon process in electron-proton (ep) collisions measured by the CLAS Collaboration are analyzed by the Monte Carlo calculations, where the transfer undergoes from the incident γ* to emitted meson or equivalently from the target proton to emitted nucleon. In the calculations, the Erlang distribution from a multi-source thermal model is used to describe the transverse momentum spectra of emitted particles. Our results show that the average transverse momentum (⟨pT⟩) and the initial-state temperature (Ti) increase from lower squared photon virtuality (Q2) and Bjorken variable (xB) to higher one. This renders that the excitation degree of emission source, which is described by ⟨pT⟩ and Ti, increases with increasing of Q2 and xB.

Baryon production in the quantized fragmentation of helical QCD string

Baryon production is studied within the framework of quantized fragmentation of a QCD string. Baryons appear in the model in a fairly intuitive way, with the help of causally connected string breakups. A simple helical approximation of a QCD flux tube with parameters constrained by a mass spectrum of light mesons is sufficient to reproduce masses of light baryons.

Meson and glueball spectroscopy within the graviton soft wall model

The graviton soft wall (GSW) model provides a unified description of the scalar glueball and meson spectra with a unique energy scale. This success has led us to extend the analysis to the description of the spectra of other hadrons. We use this model to calculate masses of the odd and even ground states of glueballs for various spins, and show that the GSW model is able to reproduce the Regge trajectory of these systems. In addition, the spectra of the $\ensuremath{\rho}$, ${a}_{1}$ and $\ensuremath{\eta}$ mesons will be addressed. Results are in excellent agreement with current experimental data. Furthermore such an achievement is obtained without any additional parameters. Indeed, the only two parameters appearing in these spectra are those that were previously fixed by the light scalar meson and glueball spectra. Finally, in order to describe the $\ensuremath{\pi}$ meson spectrum, a suitable modification of the dilaton profile function has been included in the analysis to properly take into account the Goldstone realization of chiral symmetry. The present investigation confirms that the GSW model provides an excellent description of the spectra of mesons and glueballs with only a small number of parameters unveiling a relevant predicting power.

Configuration entropy in the soft wall AdS/QCD model and the Wien law

The soft wall AdS/QCD holographic model provides simple estimates for the spectra of light mesons and glueballs satisfying linear Regge trajectories. It is also an interesting tool to represent the confinement/deconfinement transition of a gauge theory, that is pictured as a Hawking-Page transition from a dual geometry with no horizon to a black hole space. A very interesting tool to analyze stability of general physical systems that are localized in space is the configuration (or complexity) entropy (CE). This quantity, inspired in Shannon information entropy, is defined in terms of the energy density of the system in momentum space. The purpose of this work is to use the CE to investigate the stability of the soft wall background as a function of the temperature. A nontrivial aspect is that the geometry is an anti-de Sitter black hole, that has a singular energy density. In order to make it possible to calculate the CE, we first propose a regularized form for the black hole energy density. Then, calculating the CE, it is observed that its behavior is consistently related to the black hole instability in anti-de Sitter space. Another interesting result that emerges from this analysis is that the regularized energy density shows a behavior similar to the Wien law, satisfied by black body radiation. That means: the momentum kmax where the energy density is maximum, varies with the temperature T obeying the relation: T/kmax=constant in the deconfined phase.

Inverse mass hierarchy of light scalar mesons driven by anomaly-induced flavor breaking

Abstract We propose a novel mechanism to reproduce the observed mass hierarchy for scalar mesons lighter than 1 GeV (called the inverse hierarchy), regarding them as mesons made of a quark and an anti-quark ($q\bar{q}$ mesons). The source is provided by the SU(3) flavor-symmetry breaking induced by the U(1) axial anomaly. In particular, the anomaly term including the explicit chiral symmetry breaking plays a significant role in the light scalar meson spectrum. To be concrete, we construct a linear sigma model for scalar mesons of $q\bar{q}$ type together with their pseudoscalar chiral partners, including an anomaly-induced explicit chiral symmetry-breaking term. We find that, due to the proposed mechanism, the inverse hierarchy, i.e., $m\left[ a_0 (980) \right] \simeq m\left[ f_0 (980) \right] > m \left[ K_0^\ast (700) \right] > m \left[ f_0(500) \right]$, is indeed realized. Consequently, the quark content of $f_0 (500)$ is dominated by the isoscalar $\bar uu+ \bar dd$ component, and $f_0 (980)$ by the strange quark bilinear one, $s\bar{s}$.

Radial Spectrum of Light Mesons in Planar QCD Sum Rules and the Scalar Sigma-Meson

In the framework of spectral sum rules in the planar limit of quantum chromodynamics, we propose two new methods for calculating the spectra of light mesons based on using linear radial Regge trajectories and the simplest quark-antiquark operators interpolating meson states. Both methods predict a resonance near 500 MeV in the scalar-isoscalar channel, which hypothetically corresponds to the lightest scalar hadron. the σ-meson. This can mean that the quark-antiquark component is strongly dominating in its structure even if the σ-meson is a tetraquark state. In one of the methods, we obtain a reasonable agreement with experimental data using only two input parameters: the phenomenological value of the gluon condensate and the weak decay constant of the pion. In this case, the predicted quark condensate value agrees well with contemporary lattice computation results.

Twist-2 pseudoscalar and vector meson distribution amplitudes in light-front quark model with exponential-type confining potential

We study the twist-2 distribution amplitudes (DAs) and the decay constants of pseudoscalar light ($\pi$, $K$) and heavy ($D$, $D_s$, $B$, $B_s$) mesons as well as the longitudinally and transversely polarized vector light ($\rho$, $K^*$) and heavy ($D^*$, $D_s^*$, $B^*$, $B_s^*$) mesons in the light-front quark model with the Coulomb plus exponential-type confining potential $V_{\rm {exp}} = a + b e^{\alpha r}$ in addition to the hyperfine interaction. We first compute the mass spectra of ground state pseudoscalar and vector light and heavy mesons and fix the model parameters necessary for the analysis, applying the variational principle with the trial wave function up to the first three lowest order harmonic oscillator (HO) wave functions $\Phi(x, \textbf{k}_\bot) = \sum_{n=1}^{3} c_n \phi_{nS}$. We then obtain the numerical results for the corresponding decay constants of light and heavy mesons. We estimate the DAs, analyze their variation as a function of momentum fraction and compute the first six $\xi$-moments of the $B$ and $D$ mesons as well. We compare our results with the available experimental data as well as with the other theoretical model predictions.

Identifying spin and parity of charmonia in flight with lattice QCD

The spectrum of charmonium resonances contains a number of unanticipated states along with several conventional quark-model excitations. The hadrons of different quantum numbers $J^P$ appear in a fairly narrow energy band, where $J^P$ refers to the spin-parity of a hadron at rest. This poses a challenge for Lattice QCD studies of (coupled-channel) meson-meson scattering aimed at the determination of scattering amplitudes and resonance pole positions. A wealth of information for this purpose can be obtained from the lattice spectra in frames with nonzero total momentum. These are particularly dense since hadrons with different $J^P$ contribute to any given lattice irreducible representation. This is because $J^P$ is not a good quantum number in flight, and also because the continuum symmetry is reduced on the lattice. In this paper we address the assignment of the underlying continuum $J^P$ quantum numbers to charmonia in flight using a $N_f = 2 + 1$ CLS ensemble. As a first step, we apply the single-hadron approach, where only interpolating fields of quark-antiquark type are used. The approach follows techniques previously applied to the light meson spectrum by the Hadron Spectrum Collaboration. The resulting spectra of charmonia with assigned $J^P$ will provide valuable information for the parameterization of (resonant) amplitudes in future determinations of resonance properties with lattice QCD.

Jefferson Lab Report

Jefferson Laboratory is finishing a major upgrade and has already started operations with the 12 GeV continuous electron beam. The main research direction is the study of the structure of hadrons, including a search for gluon excitations in the spectra of light mesons and baryons, and studies of multidimensional images of the nucleon. Studied of certain properties of atomic nuclei are also ongoing. There is also an active program of searching for effects beyond the Standard Model in parity-violating electron scattering, as well as a search for new particles.

Chiral phase transition with 2+1 quark flavors in an improved soft-wall AdS/QCD model

We study the chiral phase transition with 2 + 1 quark flavors in an improved soft-wall AdS/QCD model, which can produce the light meson spectrum and many other low-energy quantities consistent with experiments in the two-flavor case. The chiral transition behaviors of the quark condensates at different quark masses are analysed in detail, and the (m_{u,d}, m_s) phase diagram for the quark sector has been obtained from the improved soft-wall model. We find that the features of the calculated phase diagram are completely consistent with the standard scenario, which is supported by lattice simulations and theoretical arguments. The evidence of a tricritical point on the m_{u,d} = 0 boundary of the (m_{u,d}, m_s) phase diagram is first clearly presented in the bottom-up AdS/QCD.

Meson masses in electromagnetic fields with Wilson fermions

We determine the light meson spectrum in QCD in the presence of background magnetic fields using quenched Wilson fermions. Our continuum extrapolated results indicate a monotonous reduction of the connected neutral pion mass as the magnetic field grows. The vector meson mass is found to remain nonzero, a finding relevant for the conjectured $\rho$-meson condensation at strong magnetic fields. The continuum extrapolation was facilitated by adding a novel magnetic field-dependent improvement term to the additive quark mass renormalization. Without this term, sizable lattice artifacts that would deceptively indicate an unphysical rise of the connected neutral pion mass for strong magnetic fields are present. We also investigate the impact of these lattice artifacts on further observables like magnetic polarizabilities and discuss the magnetic field-induced mixing between $\rho$-mesons and pions. We also derive Ward-Takashi identities for QCD+QED both in the continuum formulation and for (order $a$-improved) Wilson fermions.

Light-Meson Spectroscopy at GlueX

GlueX at Jefferson Lab aims to study the light meson spectrum with an emphasis on the search for light hybrid mesons. To this end, a linearly-polarized [Formula: see text]GeV photon beam impinges on a hydrogen target contained within a hermetic detector with near-complete neutral and charged particle coverage. In 2016, the experiment completed its commissioning and subsequently started to take data in its design configuration. With the size of the data set so far, GlueX already exceeds previous experiments for polarized photoproduction in this energy regime. A selection of early results will be presented, focusing on beam asymmetries for pseudo-scalar and vector mesons. The potential to make significant contributions to the field of light-meson spectroscopy is highlighted by the observation of several known meson resonances. Furthermore, the strategy to map the light meson spectrum with amplitude analysis tools will be outlined.

Meson spectrum for arbitrary twist in soft-wall holographic model

The Regge spectrum of soft-wall holographic model is generalized to the case of arbitrary twist. Combining this result with the light-front holographic QCD, one arrives at a broad hydrogen-like degeneracy of the same sort as the degeneracy observed experimentally in the spectrum of light mesons.