ar X iv : h ep - p h / 02 07 02 2 v 1 1 J ul 2 00 2 Behaviour of S - Wave poles Near Threshold and the Scalar Meson Nonet Below 1 GeV

We describe the behaviour at threshold of S-wave poles of the scattering matrix within a four-parameter model for non-exotic meson-meson scattering. This model accommodates all non-exotic mesons, hence also the light scalar mesons, as resonances and bound states characterised by complex singularities of the scattering amplitude as a function of the total invariant mass. The majority of the full S-matrix mesonic poles stem from an underlying confinement spectrum. However, the light scalar mesons K 0 (830), a0(980), f0(400–1200), and f0(980) do not, but instead originate in P0-barrier semi-bound states. We show that the behaviour of the corresponding poles is identical at threshold.