Gluonic excitations of mesons: Why they are missing and where to find them

We have studied the decays of the low-lying gluonic excitations of mesons (hybrids) predicted by a flux-tube model for chromodynamics. The probable reason for the absence to date of signals for such states is immediately explained: The lowest-lying hybrids decay preferentially to final states with one excited meson [e.g., B(1235){π}, A₂(1320){π}, K*(1420)K{}, {π}(1300)pi,. . .] rather than to two ground-state mesons (e.g., {π}{π}, {ρ}{π}, K*K{},. . .). We make specific predictions of decay channels which will contain JPC exotic hybrid resonance signals and suggest some possibly fruitful production mechanisms.