# Light Meson Mass Spectrum from Gauge Fields on Supergravity Backgrounds

## Abstract

We propose that the spectrum of light mesons (the $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$, together with their radial excitations) can be calculated in the limit of vanishing light quark masses by studying gauge theory (open string theory) on suitable higher dimensional background geometries. Using the metric proposed by Witten for glueball calculations as a paradigmatic example, we find a spectrum which is in startlingly good agreement with the masses tabulated by the Particle Data Group . These calculations have only one free parameter, corresponding to the overall mass scale. We make predictions for the next several particles in the spectrum.

String theory arose as an attempt to understand the strong interactions. With the advent of gauge theories in the early 1970’s, string theory metamorphosed into a “theory of everything”, and, until recently, has had little new to say about strong interaction phenomenology. 

The last two years, however, have seen dramatic progress towards understanding the relationship between string theory and gauge theories. Maldacena’s conjecture of the relationship between $`𝒩=4`$ supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions and string theory (supergravity) on $`AdS^5\times S^5`$ has proven very fruitful . Witten’s conjectured extension to non-supersymmetric theories  has provided the basis for calculations of glueball mass spectra which have been directly compared to the results of lattice calculations with good numerical agreement .

Unfortunately, the calculations presented to date correspond to theories which do not contain states with light quarks, and so are not directly relevant to the real world. Indeed, the question as to how to create such models starting with string theory or M-theory is still unclear.

There is, however, a qualitative line of reasoning to pursue. QCD flux tubes are presumably the starting point for a stringy picture of the strong interactions. The extra dimensions involved in the Maldacena/Witten conjectures plausibly correspond in some fashion to internal degrees of freedom (such as thickness) of the flux tube. It is thus reasonable that masses of glueballs, which are closed flux tubes in a QCD picture, can be calculated in terms of closed (super)string modes on non-trivial higher dimensional backgrounds, such as those proposed by Witten and others.

Mesons, on the other hand, should be associated with the modes of open strings. This correspondance was made in the early days of string theory, and is also suggested by a constituent quark picture in which the quark and antiquark of a meson are connected by a QCD flux tube. Since the ends of open strings move at the speed of light, this picture suggests that we will be modeling states with massless quarks; i.e. chiral symmetry is spontaneously, but not explicitly, broken. If the dynamics of these meson flux tubes are locally the same as those for glueballs, then meson dynamics in the real world should correspond to open string dynamics on the same spaces considered in the glueball calculations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of this suggestion. We do this by studying the mass spectrum associated with the lowest mode of the open (super)string: a massless gauge field $`A_\mu `$. Our calculations closely follow the calculations of the glueball mass, so our description will be brief.

We consider the action

$$I=\frac{1}{4}d^{10}x\sqrt{g}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }$$
(1)   
in Witten’s black hole metric 

$$\frac{ds^2}{l_s^2g_5^2N/4\pi }=\frac{dr^2}{r(1\frac{1}{r^6})}+r^3(1\frac{1}{r^6})d\tau ^2+r^3\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}dx_i^2+rd\mathrm{\Omega }_4^2.$$
(2)   
Though the interacting theory will be expressed in terms of a non-abelian field strength, we only need the quadratic part of the Lagrangian to calculate masses and so we take $`F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu `$. We similarly suppress the isospin indices of the $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$ fields, and the corresponding indices on the gauge field $`A_\mu `$.

We choose a gauge in which $`A_r=0`$, and make an ansatz for the modes of interest:

$`A_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`H(r)e^{ikx},`$ (3)   
$`A_i`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_i(k)G(r)e^{ikx},`$ (4)   
where $`ϵ_i`$ defines the polarization of the vector mesons. The equations of motion then imply that $`ϵk=0`$ and that

$`(r^61)_r[r^7_rH(r)]k^2r^9H(r)=0,`$ (5)   
$`_r[(r^7r)_rG(r)]k^2r^3G(r)=0.`$ (6)   
The physical $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$, together with their radial excitations, thus correspond respectively to solutions of the equations (5) and (6) which are regular at $`r=1`$ (the horizon of the black hole), and which are normalizable, i.e. fall off sufficiently rapidly as $`r\mathrm{}`$. The masses are given by the corresponding eigenvalues, $`m_i^2=k_i^2`$.

An interesting feature of eqn. (5), in contrast to eqn. (6) and the corresponding glueball equations, is that it has an acceptable solution for $`k^2=0`$ given by $`H(r)=A/r^6`$. There is thus a massless pion, as expected from the above general considerations.

Other particle masses are found by numerical techniques. We have calculated the series solution about $`r=1`$ (a regular singular point of our equations), and used this to determine the functions and their derivatives at $`r=1.01`$. These values are then used as input to numerically integrate the equations. Since normalizable solutions vanish for large $`r`$, while non-normalizable ones do not, an eigenvalue is signaled by a change in sign of the solution at large $`r`$ as $`k^2`$ is changed. Successive eigenvalues should correspond to successive excitations of the $`\pi `$ (resp. $`\rho `$). We have tested this technique by calculating the glueball spectrum, and reproduce the precise results of  to the accuracy quoted here.

The overall mass scale is not determined by our equations. We fix this by comparison with the data, minimizing $`_i((m_i^{obs})^2\lambda (m_i^{calc})^2)^2`$ with respect to $`\lambda `$. The result, $`\lambda =.043`$, is not very different if, for example, one minimizes the differences between masses rather than squared-masses.

In Table I we tabulate our results together with the observed masses of the corresponding particles. The resulting agreement is surprisingly good. The worst agreement is for the $`\pi (135)`$ and $`\rho (770)`$, and is presumably a consequence of the fact that there is no explicit chiral symmetry breaking in this model. The general pattern is consistent with quark-model expectations: the mass of the $`\rho `$ will be high if the mass of the $`\pi `$ is low, and these effects will be less important at higher masses. (This, incidentally, is why normalizing to the mass of the $`\rho `$ is probably not the best way of comparing the calculations to the data.)

It is worth while making a few comments about the states that we have included. The eigenvalues of the equations (5) and (6) correspond, respectively, to masses of successive radial excitations of the $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$. The $`\rho (1700)`$, which has the same overall quantum numbers as the $`\rho `$, is a D-wave state , and thus an orbital excitation of the $`\rho `$ which should not be reproduced by the present calculation. The $`\rho (2150)`$, which we have included, is presented in the full Meson Particle Listings but is omitted in the Data Summary Table of the Review of Particle Physics. Since we did not include this mode in determining the scale, it is in some sense a prediction of the present calculations.

There are no other states in the Meson Particle Listings with quantum numbers such that they should be reproduced by this calculation. We do, however, predict additional radial excitations of the $`\pi `$ at 2.32 GeV and 2.88 GeV and of the $`\rho `$ at 2.64 GeV. Though it may be difficult to isolate such states, it would be extremely interesting to confirm (or deny) their existence. An infinite number of additional states are also predicted, but all have masses larger than 3 GeV.

We believe that these results strongly suggest that present string theory technology is directly relevant to strong interaction phenomenology. A number of directions for further work immediately suggest themselves.

First, we have not discussed the Kaluza-Klein modes associated with the $`S^4`$ directions. In the glueball case, modifications of the metric (2) corresponding to rotating D-branes decouple the unwanted Kaluza-Klein modes without significantly changing the masses of the physical glueballs . We expect similar results here, but this must be checked.

Second, the fact that the pion is massless in this model is extremely interesting. In addition to studying the implications of this, one should also study the impact of adding an explicit mass term to the action (1). Generalizations of this may permit the extension of this model to $`K`$ and $`K^{}`$ mesons, and perhaps others.

Beyond this, it may be possible to study interactions in this model. Since baryons can already be understood as topological excitations of pions in Skyrme models , perhaps a similar understanding is possible here. Finally, other modes of the open string should be studied; they should correspond to other mesons, including orbital excitations of the $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$.

We hope to report on some of these issues in the near future.

We would like to thank Mark Trodden for helpful conversations, and Dan Akerib, Zlatko Dimcovic, Glenn Starkman and Tanmay Vachaspati for readings of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Juan Maldacena, Jeffrey Harvey and Antal Jevicki for useful background discussions. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation through grant PHY-9940415.