Calculation of the strong coupling, α sub(s), from considerations of virtual synchrotron radiation resulting in hadron pair emission

Based upon a recently published work in which a model for hadron pair production via virtual synchrotron radiation in uniform magnetic fields was introduced, an ansatz for calculating αsub(s) is presented. The resulting function is unique within the above-mentioned context. Along with a scheme introduced in which vector mesons arise by virtue of quark spin-flip with accompanying gluon emission, the αsub(s) function is used to successfully explain the observed hadronic widths of the rho, phi, and J mesons. In addition the hadronic and leptonic widths of the upsilon meson are calculated. Based upon gathered upsilon data, a charge on the b quark of (2e/3) is found to be consistent with the above model. Finally, the derived αsub(s) function is compared with results of gauge-theoretical calculations. (author)