Long-distance behavior of the quark-antiquark static potential. Application to light-quark mesons and heavy quarkonia

Screening effects from sea pairs on the quark-antiquark static potential are analyzed phenomenologically from the light-quark to the heavy-quark meson spectra. From the high excited light-quark meson spectrum a universal form for the screened static potential is proposed. This potential is then succesfully applied to heavy quarkonia. Our results suggest the assignment of X(4260) to the 4s state of charmonium and the possible existence of a 5s bottomonium resonance around 10748 MeV.