Nature of the light scalar mesons

Despite the apparent simplicity of meson spectroscopy, light scalar mesons cannot be accommodated in the usual $q\bar q$ structure. We study the description of the scalar mesons below 2 GeV in terms of the mixing of a chiral nonet of tetraquarks with conventional $q\bar q$ states. A strong diquark-antidiquark component is found for several states. The consideration of a glueball as dictated by quenched lattice QCD drives a coherent picture of the isoscalar mesons.