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Theoretical Interpretations of the XYZ Mesons

The XYZ mesons are unexpected mesons containing a heavy quark-antiquark pair that have been discovered during the last decade. The models for the XYZ mesons that have been proposed include conventional quarkonium, quarkonium hybrids, and quarkonium tetraquarks, whose four constituents can be clustered in several possible ways. None of the models have provided a compelling pattern for the XYZ mesons. The most promising theoretical approaches within QCD are lattice QCD for the c c-bar mesons, lattice NRQCD for the b b-bar mesons, and the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. The additional hints that will be provided by future experiments guarantee the eventual solution of the XYZ puzzle.