A Theory of Scalar Mesons

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical framework explaining scalar mesons as mixtures of tetraquark and quark-antiquark states, with instanton effects accurately describing their decays and mass spectrum.

Contribution

It introduces an instanton-induced six-fermion Lagrangian to model scalar meson decays and mixing, providing a unified description of light and heavier scalar mesons.

Findings

Good fit to light scalar meson decay data

Consistent mixing pattern with mass spectrum

Unified tetraquark and q-qbar meson picture

Abstract

We discuss the effect of the instanton induced, six-fermion effective Lagrangian on the decays of the lightest scalar mesons in the diquark--antidiquark picture. This addition allows for a remarkably good description of light scalar meson decays. The same effective Lagrangian produces a mixing of the lightest scalars with the positive parity q-qbar states. Comparing with previous work where the q-qbar mesons are identified with the nonet at 1200-1700 MeV, we find that the mixing required to fit the mass spectrum is in good agreement with the instanton coupling obtained from light scalar decays. A coherent picture of scalar mesons as a mixture of tetraquark states (dominating in the lightest mesons) and heavy q-qbar states (dominating in the heavier mesons) emerges.