Light Meson Mass Spectrum from Gauge Fields on Supergravity Backgrounds

We propose that the spectrum of light mesons (the $\pi$ and $\rho$, together with their radial excitations) can be calculated in the limit of vanishing light quark masses by studying gauge theory (open string theory) on suitable higher dimensional background geometries. Using the metric proposed by Witten for glueball calculations as a paradigmatic example, we find a spectrum which is in startlingly good agreement with the masses tabulated by the Particle Data Group. These calculations have only one free parameter, corresponding to the overall mass scale. We make predictions for the next several particles in the spectrum.