A covariant study of tensor mesons

We investigate tensor mesons as quark-antiquark bound states in a fully covariant Bethe-Salpeter equation. As a first concrete step we report results for masses of J^{PC}=2^{++} mesons from the chiral limit up to bottomonium and sketch a comparison to experimental data. All covariant structures of the fermion-antifermion system are taken into account and their roles and importance discussed in two different bases. We also present the general construction principle for covariant Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes of mesons with any spin and find eight covariant structures for any J>0.