Unified effective theory for light mesons and heavy mesons

We present a unified effective field theory for the light mesons and heavy mesons which integrates many features from the quark model, vector dominance, chiral dynamics, Skyrmion physics, and the heavy quark effective theory into a single universal theory. By identifying the meson fields as the Bargmann-Wigner superfields with the direct product representation of a quark and antiquark and using the Bargmann-Wigner equation and Lagrangian, we can readily match the meson Lagrangian with the quark Lagrangian. Thus we not only incorporate various aspects of the quark contents into the meson fields but we can also transcribe the implementation of the chiral symmetry and spontaneous symmetry breakings from the quark Lagrangian to the meson Lagrangian. The physical light meson fields can be constructed nonlinearly from the quark and antiquark direct product representation, with the 0- pseudoscalar mesons as the Goldstone mesons and the 1- vector mesons as the non-Abelian gauge fields of the hidden local SU(3) symmetry. Phenomenological consequences and theoretical implications of this theory will be discussed. Various aspects of the heavy quark effective theory are automatically integrated into this formulation. copyright 1997 The American Physical Society