# Radiative Meson and Glueball Decays in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto Model

## TL;DR

This paper uses the holographic Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model to calculate radiative decay rates of mesons and glueballs, providing new predictions for decay channels and implications for glueball identification.

## Contribution

It offers novel predictions for glueball decay widths and explores the viability of glueball candidates within a top-down holographic framework.

## Key findings

- Scalar, tensor, and pseudoscalar glueballs have sizeable two-photon widths.
- The observed two-photon rate of $f_0(1710)$ is compatible with a glueball interpretation.
- Exotic scalar glueballs are too broad to match main candidates but may be relevant for alternative scenarios.

## Abstract

We calculate radiative decay rates of mesons and glueballs in the top-down holographic Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model with finite quark masses. After assessing to what extent this model agrees or disagrees with experimental data, we present its predictions for so far undetermined decay channels. Contrary to widespread expectations, we obtain sizeable two-photon widths of scalar, tensor, and pseudoscalar glueballs, suggesting in particular that the observed two-photon rate of the glueball candidate $f_0(1710)$ is not too large to permit a glueball interpretation, but could be even much higher. We also discuss the so-called exotic scalar glueball, which in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model is too broad to match either of the main glueball candidates $f_0(1500)$ and $f_0(1710)$, but might be of interest with regard to the alternative scenario of the so-called fragmented scalar glueball. Employing the exotic scalar glueball for the latter, much smaller two-photon rates are predicted for the ground-state glueball despite a larger total width; relatively large two-photon rates would then apply to the excited scalar glueball described by the predominantly dilatonic scalar glueball. In either case, the resulting contributions to the muon $g-2$ from hadronic light-by-light scattering involving glueball exchanges are small compared to other single meson exchanges, of the order of $\lesssim 10^{-12}$.