THE EXISTENCE OF LOW-LYING MESONS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF CONFINEMENT

We use the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the investigation of the mass s pectra of four nonets of low-lying mesons (pseudoscalar, scalar, vecto r and axial-vector) within QCD with a linearly rising potential. In le ading order in the large-N expansion and in the chiral limit the mass spectra are found in agreement with those predicted by the extended Na mbu-Jona-Lasinio model. We show that due to the confinement potential the nonets of vector and axial-vector mesons are stable under decays i nto quark-antiquark pairs.