Multiquark hadrons. II. Methods

Abstract

Techniques for estimating the masses and decay couplings of multiquark hadrons (${Q}^{m}{\overline{Q}}^{n}$, $n+m>3$) are developed with specific reference to the ${Q}^{2}{\overline{Q}}^{2}$ sector. The dynamics is based on a quark-bag model of light, colored, and permanently confined quarks gauge-coupled to non-Abelian colored gluons. The SU (6) of "color-spin" generated by color SU (3) and the SU (2) of relativistic $j=\frac{1}{2}$ quarks dominates the spectrum. Color-spin rules analogous to Hund's rules of atomic spectroscopy dictate that the lightest multiquark handrons are not exotic, are of low spin, and are coupled predominantly to strange ${Q}^{3}$ and $Q\overline{Q}$ decay channels, Multiquark hadrons are consequently elusive and may be misclassified as conventional $Q\overline{Q}$ mesons or ${Q}^{3}$ baryons.