Excited heavy mesons beyond leading order in the heavy quark expansion

We examine the decays of excited heavy mesons, including the leading power corrections to the heavy quark limit. We find a anew and natural explanation for the large deviation of the width of the D₁(2420) from the heavy quark symmetry prediction. Our formalism leads to detailed predictions for the properties of the excited bottom mesons, some of which recently have been observed. Finally, we present a detailed analysis of the effect of power corrections and finite meson widths on the angular distributions which may be measured in heavy meson decays. {} 1995 The American Physical Society.