Unified, Relativistic Quark Model for Mesons

Abstract

A relativistic wave equation is solved for equal-mass quarks interacting via a combined linear and "Coulombic" potential, the latter being softened at short distances in accord with asymptotic freedom. Assuming that colored SU(4) is broken only by the quark mass differences, I predict masses and leptonic decay widths for the $\ensuremath{\rho}$, $\ensuremath{\phi}$, and $\ensuremath{\psi}$ meson families of states. Agreement with experiment is excellent.