Axial-vector gluons and the fine structure of heavy quark--antiquark systems

We point out that two models of the origin of spin-dependent forces in heavy quark systems make very different predictions about the relative size of these forces in c-barc and b-barb. The model in which these forces are relativistic corrections to vector or scalar gluon exchange predicts smaller spin-dependent effects in b-barb than in c-barc while a model in which these forces are due to exchange of axial-vector gluons predicts a similar size for spin-dependent splittings in the two systems