Meson spectrum in SU(N) gauge theories with quarks in higher representations: A check of Casimir scaling hypothesis

Abstract Gauge theories with gauge group SU ( N ) and quarks belonging to arbitrary representations of SU ( N ) form a rich landscape of QCD-like theories, whose study can shed new light on the properties of confinement. Four cases are particularly worth of interest: quarks in the fundamental representation, quarks in the 2-indice (anti)symmetric representation and quarks in the adjoint representation. The last three corresponding QCD-like theories are equivalent at large-N for bosonic observables: It is the orientifold equivalence. The behavior of the lightest vector meson mass versus N has been studied in quenched lattice QCD in the chiral limit in these theories. We show that the observed behaviors are compatible with a string tension proportional to the quadratic Casimir of SU ( N ) in the quark color representation, i.e. with the Casimir scaling hypothesis. The large-N limit of some excited meson masses computed in quenched lattice QCD with quarks in the fundamental representation is also shown to be compatible with QCD string’s well-known signature: Regge trajectories.