Radiative Decay of Vector Quarkonium: Constraints on Glueballs and Light Gluinos

Abstract

Given a resonance of known mass, width, and J^{PC}, we can determine its gluonic branching fraction, b(R->gg), from data on its production in radiative vector quarkonium decay, V -> gamma+R. For most resonances b(R->gg) is found to be O(10%), consistent with being q-qbar states, but we find that both pseudoscalars observed in the 1440 MeV region have b(R->gg) ~ 1/2 - 1, and b(f_0^{++}->gg) ~ 1/2. As data improves, b(R->gg) should be a useful discriminator between q-qbar and gluonic states and may permit quantitative determination of the extent to which a particular resonance is a mixture of glueball and q-qbar. We also examine the regime of validity of pQCD for predicting the rate of V -> gamma+eta_gluino, the ``extra'' pseudoscalar bound state which would exist if there were light gluinos. From the CUSB limit on peaks in Upsilon -> gamma X, the mass range 3 GeV < m(eta_gluino) < 7 GeV can be excluded. An experiment must be significantly more sensitive to exclude an eta_gluino lighter than this.