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 characterize by heavy-meson leptonic decays, semileptonic heavy-to-heavy and heavy-to-light transitions, BD^*, D, , ; DK^*, K, , radiative and strong decays, B (ₒ) ^*B (ₒ) ; D (ₒ) ^*D (ₒ), D, and the rare BK^* flavor-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 M₂=1. 32 GeV and M₁=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 able to describe vector meson polarization observables well.