WEAK DECAY OF HEAVY VECTOR-MESONS

We consider the possibility that weak decay may compete with or dominate electromagnetic decay of heavy vector mesons. We find that this possibility is realized for vector mesons containing t quarks (Q=23) for mt>12 GeV if we use the mass-splitting formula of De Rújula et al. We further analyze the possible weak decay modes and find that annihilation contributions are suppressed by mixing angles for both the Dt+*(td̄) and Ft+*(ts̄). For the Dt0*(tū) we find that the decay mode Dt0*→bd̄ may be significant depending on the value of mt and the amount of nonleptonic enhancement. © 1979 The American Physical Society.