We review heavy quark flavor and spin symmetries, their exploitation in heavy meson effective theories and the flavored couplings of charmed and light mesons in the definition of their effective Lagrangians. We point out how nonperturbative continuum
QCD approaches based on Dyson-Schwinger and Bethe-Salpeter equations can be used to calculate strong and leptonic decays of open-charm mesons and heavy quarkonia. The strong decay $D^*to Dpi$ serves as a benchmark, as it is the only physical open-charm observable that can be related to the effective Lagrangians couplings. Nonetheless, a quantitative comparison of $D^*Dpi$, $rho DD$, $rho D^*D$ and $rho D^* D^*$ couplings for a range of off-shell momenta of the $rho$-meson invalidates SU(4)$_F$ symmetry relations between these couplings. Thus, besides the breaking of flavor symmetry by mass terms in the Lagrangians, the flavor-symmetry breaching in couplings and their dependence on the $rho$-meson virtuality cannot be ignored. We also take the opportunity to present new results for the effective $J/psi DD$ and $J/psi D^*D$ couplings. We conclude this contribution with a discussion on how the description of pseudoscalar and vector $D$, $D_s$, $B$ and $B_s$ meson properties can be drastically improved with a modest modification of the flavor-dependence in the Bethe-Salpeter equation.
We extend earlier studies of transverse Ward-Fradkin-Green-Takahashi identities in QED, their usefulness to constrain the transverse fermion-boson vertex and their importance for multiplicative renormalizability, to the equivalent gauge identities in
QCD. To this end, we consider transverse Slavnov-Taylor identities that constrain the transverse quark-gluon vertex and derive its eight associated scalar form factors. The complete vertex can be expressed in terms of the quarks mass and wave-renormalization functions, the ghost-dressing function, the quark-ghost scattering amplitude and a set of eight form factors. The latter parametrize the hitherto unknown nonlocal tensor structure in the transverse Slavnov-Taylor identity which arises from the Fourier transform of a four-point function involving a Wilson line in coordinate space. We determine the functional form of these eight form factors with the constraints provided by the Bashir-Bermudez vertex and study the effects of this novel vertex on the quark in the Dyson-Schwinger equation using lattice QCD input for the gluon and ghost propagators. We observe significant dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and a mass gap that leads to a constituent mass of the order of 500 MeV for the light quarks. The flavor dependence of the mass and wave-renormalization functions as well as their analytic behavior on the complex momentum plane is studied and as an application we calculate the quark condensate and the pions weak decay constant in the chiral limit. Both are in very good agreement with their reference values.
The ladder kernel of the Bethe-Salpeter equation is amended by introducing a different flavor dependence of the dressing functions in the heavy-quark sector. Compared with earlier work this allows for the simultaneous calculation of the mass spectrum
and leptonic decay constants of light pseudoscalar mesons, the $D_u$, $D_s$, $B_u$, $B_s$ and $B_c$ mesons and the heavy quarkonia $eta_c$ and $eta_b$ within the same framework at a physical pion mass. The corresponding Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes are projected onto the light front and we reconstruct the distribution amplitudes of the mesons in the full theory. A comparison with the first inverse moment of the heavy meson distribution amplitude in heavy quark effective theory is made.
We briefly review common features and overlapping issues in hadron and flavor physics focussing on continuum QCD approaches to heavy bound states, their mass spectrum and weak decay constants in different strong interaction models.
We compute couplings between the $rho$-meson and $D$- and $D^ast$-mesons - $D^{(ast)}rho D^{(ast)}$ - that are relevant to phenomenological meson-exchange models used to analyse nucleon-$D$-meson scattering and explore the possibility of exotic charm
ed nuclei. Our framework is built from elements constrained by Dyson-Schwinger equation studies in QCD, and therefore expresses a consistent, simultaneous description of light- and heavy-quarks and the states they constitute, We find that all interactions, including the three independent $D^{ast} rho ,D^{ast}$ couplings, differ markedly amongst themselves in strength and also in range, as measured by their evolution with $rho$-meson virtuality. As a consequence, it appears that no single coupling strength or parametrization can realistically be employed in the study of interactions between $D^{(ast)}$-mesons and matter.
We highlight Hermiticity issues in bound-state equations whose kernels are subject to a highly asymmetric mass and momentum distribution and whose eigenvalue spectrum becomes complex for radially excited states. We trace back the presence of imaginar
y components in the eigenvalues and wave functions to truncation artifacts and suggest how they can be eliminated in the case of charmed mesons. The solutions of the gap equation in the complex plane, which play a crucial role in the analytic structure of the Bethe-Salpeter kernel, are discussed for several interaction models and qualitatively and quantitatively compared to analytic continuations by means of complex-conjugate pole models fitted to real solutions.
Amongst the bound states produced by the strong interaction, radially excited meson and nucleon states offer an important phenomenological window into the long-range behavior of the coupling constant in Quantum Chromodynamics. We here report on some
technical details related to the computation of the bound states eigenvalue spectrum in the framework of Bethe-Salpeter and Faddeev equations.
We study ground and radial excitations of flavor singlet and flavored pseudoscalar mesons within the framework of the rainbow-ladder truncation using an infrared massive and finite interaction in agreement with recent results for the gluon-dressing f
unction from lattice QCD and Dyson-Schwinger equations. Whereas the ground-state masses and decay constants of the light mesons as well as charmonia are well described, we confirm previous observations that this truncation is inadequate to provide realistic predictions for the spectrum of excited and exotic states. Moreover, we find a complex conjugate pair of eigenvalues for the excited $D_{(s)}$ mesons, which indicates a non-Hermiticity of the interaction kernel in the case of heavy-light systems and the present truncation. Nevertheless, limiting ourselves to the leading contributions of the Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes, we find a reasonable description of the charmed ground states and their respective decay constants.
The elastic and $gamma to pi$ transition form factors of the pion along with its usual static observables are calculated within a light-front field approach to the constituent quark model. The focus of this exercise in a simple model is on a unified
description of all observables with one singly parametrized light-front wave function to detect possible discrepancies in experimental data, in particular the contentious large momentum-squared data on the transition factor as reported by BaBar and Belle. We also discuss the relation of a small to vanishing pion charge radius with an almost constant pion distribution amplitude and compare our results with those obtained in a holographic light-front model.
We give a snapshot of recent progress in solving the Dyson-Schwinger equation with a beyond rainbow-ladder ansatz for the dressed quark-gluon vertex which includes ghost contributions. We discuss the motivations for this approach with regard to heavy
-flavored bound states and form factors and briefly describe future steps to be taken.
