Light tetraquark states with $J^{PC}=1^{--}$ from QCD sum rules

Abstract

We perform a systematic QCD sum rule study of light tetraquark states with $J^{PC}=1^{--}$ in the diquark--antidiquark picture. A complete set of local interpolating currents is constructed and projected onto six flavor-isospin configurations ($q=u/d$): the isoscalar $q q\bar q\bar q$, $q s\bar q\bar s$, and $s s\bar s\bar s$ sectors, the isovector $q q\bar q\bar q$ and $q s\bar q\bar s$ sectors, and the isotensor $q q\bar q\bar q$ sector. The lowest masses in these sectors are derived to be $1.64^{+0.15}_{-0.14}$~GeV, $1.86^{+0.14}_{-0.14}$~GeV, $2.34^{+0.23}_{-0.30}$~GeV, $1.53^{+0.17}_{-0.19}$~GeV, $1.86^{+0.14}_{-0.14}$~GeV, and $2.24^{+0.12}_{-0.14}$~GeV, respectively. We further compare the present $1^{--}$ tetraquark spectrum with previous QCD sum rule results for the $1^{-+}$ tetraquark and hybrid states~\cite{Su:2025bhv}, aiming to provide useful information for distinguishing tetraquark and hybrid configurations in the light hadron spectrum. As an additional improvement, we complete the previously missing isotensor $1^{-+}$ tetraquark entry and obtain its lowest mass to be $M=2.19^{+0.26}_{-0.24}~\mathrm{GeV}$, which is included in the spectral comparison.