Charge radii of light and heavy mesons

Chien-Wen Hwang

Published 2001-12-18, updated 2002-01-28Version 2

We calculate the electromagnetic (EM) form factors of the pseudoscalar mesons in the light-front framework. Specifically, these form factors are extracted from the relevant matrix elements directly, instead of choosing the Breit frame. The results show that the charge radius of the meson is related to both the first and second longitudinal momentum square derivatives of the momentum distribution function. The static properties of the EM form factors and the heavy quark symmetry of the charge radii are checked analytically in the heavy quark limit. In addition, we use the Gaussia-type wavefunction to obtain the numerical results.