How the Z_c(3900) Reveals the Spectra of Quarkonium Hybrid and Tetraquark Mesons

Understand

Flavor-exotic tetraquark mesons have recently been observed in the heavy-quark pair sectors of QCD, including two isospin multiplets in the b b-bar sector, Z_b(10610) and Z_b(10650), and one isospin multiplet in the c c-bar sector, Z_c(3900).

• We identify Z_b and Z_c as tetraquark mesons that are analogs of quarkonium hybrids with the gluon field replaced by an isospin-1 excitation of the light-quark fields.
• Given the identification of Y(4260) and Z_c(3900) as a ground-state charmonium hybrid and tetraquark, respectively, lattice QCD calculations of the charmonium spectrum can be used to estimate the masses of the lowest four spin-symmetry multiplets of charmonium hybrids and tetraquarks.
• The Z_b(10610) and Z_b(10650) can be assigned to excited-state multiplets of bottomonium tetraquarks, resulting in estimates of the masses of the ground-state multiplets of bottomonium hybrids and tetraquarks.