Charm meson scattering cross sections by pion and rho mason

Using the local flavor SU(4) gauge invariance in the limit of vanishing vector-meson masses, we extend our previous study of charm-meson scattering cross sections by pion and rho meson, which is based only on the pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar-vector meson couplings, to include also contributions from the couplings among three vector mesons and among four particles. We find that diagrams with light-meson exchanges usually dominate the cross sections. For the processes considered previously, the additional interactions lead only to diagrams involving charm-meson exchanges and contact interactions, and the cross sections for these processes are thus not much affected. Nevertheless, these additional interactions introduce new processes with light-meson exchanges and increase significantly the total scattering cross sections of charm mesons by pion and rho meson. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.