Paper detail

Survey of heavy-meson observables

We employ a Dyson-Schwinger equation model to effect a unified and uniformly accurate description of light- and heavy-meson observables, which we characterise by heavy-meson leptonic decays, semileptonic heavy-to-heavy and heavy-to-light transitions - B -> D*, D, rho, pi; D -> K*, K, pi, radiative and strong decays - B(s)* -> B(s) gamma; D(s)* -> D(s) gamma, D pi, and the rare B-> K* gamma flavour-changing neutral-current process. We elucidate the heavy-quark limit of these processes and, using a model-independent mass formula valid for all nonsinglet pseudoscalar mesons, demonstrate that their mass rises linearly with the mass of their heaviest constituent. In our numerical calculations we eschew a heavy-quark expansion and rely instead on the observation that the dressed c,b-quark mass functions are well approximated by a constant, interpreted as their constituent-mass: we find M_c=1.32 GeV and M_b=4.65 GeV. The calculated heavy-meson leptonic decay constants and transition form factors are a necessary element in the experimental determination of CKM matrix elements. The results also show that this framework, as employed hitherto, is well able to describe vector meson polarisation observables.