Scaling of the 3P0 strength in heavy meson strong decays

Abstract: The phenomenological 3P0 decay model has been extensively applied to calculate meson strong decays. The strength \gamma\ of the decay interaction is regarded as a free flavor independent constant and is fitted to the data. We calculate through the 3P0 model the total strong decay widths of the mesons which belong to charmed, charmed-strange, hidden charm and hidden bottom sectors. The wave function of the mesons involved in the strong decays are given by a constituent quark model that describes well the meson phenomenology from the light to the heavy quark sector. A global fit of the experimental data shows that, contrarily to the usual wisdom, the \gamma\ depends on the reduced mass of the quark-antiquark pair in the decaying meson. With this scale-dependent strength \gamma, we are able to predict the decay width of orbitally excited B mesons not included in the fit.