The Experimental Status of Glueballs

V. Crede, C. A. Meyer

Published 2008-12-03, updated 2009-03-02Version 3

Glueballs and other resonances with large gluonic components are predicted as bound states by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The lightest (scalar) glueball is estimated to have a mass in the range from 1 to 2 GeV/c**2; a pseudoscalar and tensor glueball are expected at higher masses. Many different experiments exploiting a large variety of production mechanisms have presented results in recent years on light mesons with J(PC) = 0(++), 0(-+), and 2(++) quantum numbers. This review looks at the experimental status of glueballs. Good evidence exists for a scalar glueball which is mixed with nearby mesons, but a full understanding is still missing. Evidence for tensor and pseudoscalar glueballs are weak at best. Theoretical expectations of phenomenological models and QCD on the lattice are briefly discussed.