Light Hadron Spectroscopy: Theory and Experiment

Rapporteur talk at the Lepton-Photon Conference, Rome, July 2001: reviewing the evidence and strategies for understanding scalar mesons, glueballs and hybrids, the gluonic Pomeron and the interplay of heavy flavours and light hadron dynamics. Dedicated to the memory of Nathan Isgur, long-time collaborator and friend, whose original ideas in hadron spectroscopy formed the basis for much of the talk.Comment: to be published in "Lepton Photon 2001 Conference Proceedings" (World Scientific Publishing), 19 pages with 6 figure

Radiative decays: a new flavour filter

Radiative decays of the $1^3D_1$ orbital excitations of the $\rho$, $\omega$ and $\phi$ to the scalars $f_0(1370)$, $f_0(1500)$ and $f_0(1710)$ are shown to provide a flavour filter, clarifying the extent of glueball mixing in the scalar states. A complementary approach to the latter is provided by the radiative decays of the scalar mesons to the ground-state vectors $\rho$, $\omega$ and $\phi$. Discrimination among different mixing scenarios is strong.Comment: 12 pages, 1 table, 0 figure

Gamma-Z box contributions to parity violating elastic e-p scattering

Parity-violating (PV) elastic electron-proton scattering measures Q-weak for the proton, $Q_W^p$. To extract $Q_W^p$ from data, all radiative corrections must be well-known. Recently, disagreement on the gamma-Z box contribution to $Q_W^p$ has prompted the need for further analysis of this term. Here, we support one choice of a debated factor, go beyond the previously assumed equality of electromagnetic and gamma-Z structure functions, and find an analytic result for one of the gamma-Z box integrals. Our numerical evaluation of the gamma-Z box is in agreement within errors with previous reports, albeit somewhat larger in central value, and is within the uncertainty requirements of current experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, v2: reference added, typo fixe

Dynamics of hadron strong production and decay

We generalize results of lattice QCD to determine the spin-dependent symmetries and factorization properties of meson production in OZI allowed processes. This explains some conjectures previously made in the literature about axial meson decays and gives predictions for exclusive decays of vector charmonia, including ways of establishing the structure of Y(4260) and Y(4325) from their S-wave decays. Factorization gives a selection rule which forbids $e^+e^- \to D^* D_2$ near threshold with the tensor meson in helicity 2. The relations among amplitudes for double charmonia production \e^+e^-\to \psi\chi_{0,1,2} are expected to differ from the analagous relations among light flavour production such as \e^+e^-\to \omega f_{0,1,2}.Comment: 13 pages; journal versio

Looking for a gift of Nature: Hadron loops and hybrid mixing

We investigate how coupling of valence q qbar to meson pairs can modify the properties of conventional q qbar and hybrid mesons. In a symmetry limit the mixing between hybrids and conventional q qbar with the same J^PC is shown to vanish. Flavor mixing between heavy and light q qbar due to meson loops is shown to be dual to the results of gluon mediated pQCD, and qualitatively different from mixing involving light flavors alone. The validity of the OZI rule for conventional q qbar and hybrid mesons is discussed.Comment: v2: added important references and discussion of previous literature; results and conclusions unchanged. 8 pages, 2 figure

Hadronic decays from the lattice

We discuss strategies to determine hadronic decay couplings from lattice studies. As an application, we explore the decay of a vector meson to two pseudoscalar mesons with $N_f=2$ flavours of sea quark. Although we are working with quark masses that do not allow a physical decay, we show how the transition rate can be evaluated from the amplitude for $\rho \to \pi \pi$ and from the annihilation component of $\pi \pi \to \pi \pi$. We explore the decay amplitude for two different pion momenta and find consistent results. The coupling strength we find is in agreement with experiment. We also find evidence for a shift in the $\rho$ mass caused by mixing with two pion states.Comment: Proc. Latt03 (spectrum), 3 pages, 4 fig

The First Direct Distance and Luminosity Determination for a Self-Luminous Giant Exoplanet: The Trigonometric Parallax to 2MASS1207334-393254Ab

We present the first trigonometric parallax and distance for a young planetary mass object. A likely TW Hya cluster member, 2MASSW J1207334-393254Ab (hereafter 2M1207Ab) is an M8 brown dwarf with a mid to late L type planetary mass companion. Recent observations of spectral variability have uncovered clear signs of disk accretion and outflow, constraining the age of the system to <10 Myr. Because of its late spectral type and the clearly youthful nature of the system, 2M1207b is very likely a planetary mass object. We have measured the first accurate distance and luminosity for a self-luminous planetary mass object. Our parallax measurements are accurate to <2 mas (1sigma) for 2M1207Ab. With 11 total epochs of data taken from January 2006 through April 2 007 (475 images for 2M1207Ab), we determine a distance of 58.8+-7.0 pc (17.0{+2.3}{-1.8} mas, 1.28sigma) to 2M1207Ab and a calculated luminosity of 0.68-2.2x10^-5 Lsun for 2M1207b. Hence 2M1207Ab is a clear member of the TW Hya cluster in terms of its distance, proper motions, and youthful nature. However, as previously noted by Mohanty and co-workers, 2M1207b's luminosity appears low compared to its temperature according to evolutionary models.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted to ApJ Letter

Rapid and robust spin state amplification

Electron and nuclear spins have been employed in many of the early demonstrations of quantum technology (QT). However applications in real world QT are limited by the difficulty of measuring single spins. Here we show that it is possible to rapidly and robustly amplify a spin state using a lattice of ancillary spins. The model we employ corresponds to an extremely simple experimental system: a homogenous Ising-coupled spin lattice in one, two or three dimensions, driven by a continuous microwave field. We establish that the process can operate at finite temperature (imperfect initial polarisation) and under the effects of various forms of decoherence.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure