One-gluon exchange effects on linear meson trajectories in the covariant oscillator quark model

Abstract

We investigate one-gluon exchange effects on the linear Regge trajectories of all quark-antiquark meson systems, from light through heavy quarks, in the framework of the covariant oscillator quark model. This model gives linearly rising trajectories to both orbitally and radially excited states in the limit of neglecting perturbative QCD effects. We find that the spin-independent one-gluon exchange interaction barely affects the orbital excitations, preserving the well-known linearity of the leading Regge trajectories, but for the radial excitations it makes an appropriate contribution, in conformity with the observed behaviour largely deviating from the linear trajectories. We also calculate the hyperfine mass splittings of all ground-stateS-wave mesons. For as yet unknown mass splittings, we findM(B*c)−M(Bc)≈50 MeV andM(Y)−M(ηb)≈49 MeV.