Quark–hadron duality for hybrid mesons at large-Nc

Abstract We investigate implications of quark–hadron duality for hybrid mesons in the large- N c limit. A simple formalism is developed which implements duality for QCD two-point functions of currents of quark bilinears, with any number of gluons. We argue that the large- N c meson masses share a common parameter, which is related to the QCD string tension. This parameter is fixed from correlators of conserved vector and axial-vector currents, and using lattice QCD determinations of the string tension. Our results predict towers of hybrid mesons which, within expected 1/ N c corrections, naturally accommodate the 1 −+ experimental hybrid candidates.