Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Because glueballs are $SU(3)_Flavor$ singlets, they are expected tocouple equally to $u,d$, and $s$ quarks, so that equal coupling strengths to $\pi^+\pi^-$ and $K^+K^-$ are predicted. However, we show that chiral symmetry implies the scalar glueball amplitude for $G_0\rightarrow \overline qq$ is proportional to the quark mass, so that mixing with $\sbs$ mesons is enhanced and decays to $K^+K^-$ are favored over $\pi^+\pi^-$. Together with evidence from lattice calculations and from experiment, this supports the hypothesis that $f_0(1710)$ is the ground state scalar glueball.