While the ground-state tensor (J P C = 2 ++ ) mesons a 2 (1320), K * 2 (1430), f 2 (1270), and f ′ 2 (1525) are well known experimentally and form an almost ideal nonet of quark-antiquark states, their chiral partners, the ground-states axial-tensor (J P C = 2 −− ) mesons are poorly settled: only the kaonic member K 2 (1820) of the nonet has been experimentally found, whereas the isovector state ρ 2 and two isoscalar states ω 2 and φ 2 are still missing. Here, we study masses, strong, and radiative decays of tensor and axial-tensor mesons within a chiral model that links them: the established tensor mesons are used to test the model and to determine its parameters, and subsequently various predictions for their chiral partners, the axial-tensor mesons, are obtained. The results are compared to current lattice QCD outcomes as well as to other theoretical approaches and show that the ground-state axial-tensor mesons are expected to be quite broad, the vector-pseudoscalar mode being the most prominent decay mode followed by the tensor-pseudoscalar one. Nonetheless, their experimental finding seems to be possible in ongoing and/or future experiments.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.