Semileptonic decays of heavy mesons

Abstract

The semileptonic and leptonic decays of heavy mesons are studied as a phenomenological application and exploration of a heavy-quark limit of Dyson-Schwinger equations. The single form factor, $\xi (w)$, which characterises the semileptonic decay in this limit, is calculated and compares well with recent experimental extractions. We obtain a lower bound of 1/3 on the slope-parameter ${\rho }^2\equiv -{\xi }^{\prime }(1)$, which, in calculations with realistic input, is exceeded by a great deal: agreement with experimental data requiring ${\rho }^2\sim 1.2-1.6$. The flavour and momentum dependence of the light-quark propagators has observable consequences.

Comments: 11 pages, LaTeX, epsfig.sty, elsart.sty