Excited flux tube from $q\bar q g$ hybrid mesons

In the framework of quark models, hybrid mesons are either seen as two-body $q\bar q$ systems with an excited flux tube connecting the quark to the antiquark or as three-body $q\bar q g$ systems including a constituent gluon. In this work we show that, starting from the three-body wave function of the $q\bar q g$ hybrid meson in which the gluonic degrees of freedom are averaged, the excited flux tube picture emerges as an equivalent $q\bar q$ potential. This equivalence between the excited flux tube and the constituent gluon approach is confirmed for heavy hybrid mesons but, for the first time, it is shown to hold in the light sector too, provided the contribution of the quark dynamics is correctly taken into account.