Glueball spectrum in O(a)-improved lattice QCD -: art. no. 034502

We calculate the light "glueball" mass spectrum in N-f=2 lattice QCD using a fermion action that is nonperturbatively O(a) improved. We work at lattice spacings asimilar to0.1 fm and with quark masses that range down to about one-half the strange quark mass. We find the statistical errors to be moderate and under control on relatively small ensembles. We compare our mass spectrum to that of quenched QCD at the same value of a. While the tensor mass is the same (within errors), the scalar mass is significantly smaller in the dynamical lattice theory, by a factor of similar to0.84+/-0.03. We discuss what the observed m(q) dependence of this suppression tells us about the dynamics of glueballs in QCD. We also calculate the masses of flux tubes that wind around the spatial torus, and extract the string tension from these. As we decrease the quark, mass we see a small but growing vacuum expectation value for the corresponding flux tube operators. This provides clear evidence for "string breaking" and for the (expected) breaking of the associated gauge center symmetry by sea quarks.