Recent studies of meson spectra have enabled the resonance structure of the IJ^PC = 00⁺⁺, 10⁺⁺, 02⁺⁺, 12⁺⁺, and IJ^P = 1/2 0⁺ waves to be found for masses ranging up to 1900 MeV, thus fully reconstructing the 1³ P₀q \-{q} and 2³P₀q \-{q} meson multiplets. There is firm experimental evidence for the existence of five scalar-isoscalar states in this mass range, four of which are q \-{q} states and members of the 1³ P₀q \-{q} and 2³ P₀q \-{q} nonets, whereas the fifth falls out of the quark picture and displays all the properties of the lightest possible scalar glueball. A dispersion analysis of the 00⁺⁺ wave elucidates how the mixture of the pure glueball state (or gluonium) with neighboring scalar q \-{q} states forms: three scalar mesons, namely two relatively narrow f₀(1300) and f₀(1500) resonances and a very broad f₀(1530_-250⁺⁹⁰) resonance, share the gluonium, the broad resonance being the gluonium’s descendant and accounting for about 40 to 50% of it.

PACS: 12.39.Mk, 12.38.−t, 14.40.−n (all) DOI: 10.1070/PU1998v041n05ABEH000390 URL: https://ufn.ru/en/articles/1998/5/a/ 000075061000001 Citation: Anisovich V V "The lightest scalar glueball" Phys. Usp. 41 419–439 (1998) BibTexBibNote ® (generic)BibNote ® (RIS)MedlineRefWorks Оригинал: Анисович В В «Легчайший скалярный глюбол» УФН 168 481–502 (1998); DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.0168.199805a.0481