A search for non-$q\bar{q}$ mesons at the CERN Omega Spectrometer

The non-Abelian nature of QCD suggests that particles that have a gluon constituent, such as glueballs or hybrids, should exist. Experiments WA76, WA91 and WA102 have performed a dedicated search for these states in central production using the CERN Omega Spectrometer. Several non-qqbar candidates have been observed. This paper presents a study of central meson production as a function of the difference in transverse momentum (dPT) of the exchanged particles which shows that undisputed qqbar mesons are suppressed at small dPT whereas the glueball candidates are enhanced.