First study of the three-gluon static potential in lattice QCD

We estimate the potential energy for a system of three static gluons in lattice QCD. This is relevant for the different models of three-body glueballs that have been proposed in the literature, either for gluons with a constituent mass, or for massless ones. A Wilson loop adequate to the static hybrid three-body system is developed. We study different spacial geometries, to compare the starfish model with the triangle model, for the three-gluon potential. We also study two different color structures, symmetric and antisymmetric, and compare the respective static potentials. A first simulation is performed in a 24(3)x48 periodic Lattice, with beta=6.2 and a similar to 0.072 fm.