Regge spectra, symmetry-breaking effects, and decays of old and new mesons in dual resonance amplitudes

Single-term Veneziano dual amplitudes with nondegenerate Regge slopes are examined in detail. Factorization of parent resonance residues and the equal-spacing rule extracted from the universal-slope case are used to determine all the leading-meson-trajectory parameters in terms of that of the rho. Relations between nondegenerate slopes and SU(4) -symmetry-breaking effects are discussed. The predicted meson mass spectra and the partial decay widths into two pseudoscalars are shown to agree well with data for the cases in which data exist