Properties of Excited Charm and Charm-Strange Mesons

We calculate the properties of excited charm and charm-strange mesons. We use the relativized quark model to calculate their masses and wavefunctions that are used to calculate radiative transition partial widths and the $^3P_0$ quark-pair-creation model to calculate their strong decay widths. We use these results to make quark model spectroscopic assignments for recently observed charm and charm-strange mesons. In particular we find that the properties of the $D_J(2550)^0$ and $D_J^*(2600)^0$ are consistent with those of the $2^1S_0(c\bar{u})$ and the $2^3S_1(c\bar{u})$ states respectively, the $D_1^*(2760)^0$, $D_3^*(2760)^-$, and $D_J(2750)^0$ with those of the $1^3D_1(c\bar{u})$, $1^3D_3(d\bar{c})$, and $1D_2(c\bar{u})$ states respectively. We tentatively identify the $D^*_J(3000)^0$ as the $1^3F_4(c\bar{u})$ and favour the $D_J(3000)^0$ to be the $3^1S_0(c\bar{u})$ although we do not rule out the $1F_3$ and $1F_3'$ assignment. For the recently observed charm-strange mesons we identify the $D_{s1}^*(2709)^\pm$, $D_{s1}^*(2860)^-$, and $D_{s3}^*(2860)^-$ as the $2^3S_1(c\bar{s})$, $1^3D_1(s\bar{c})$, and $1^3D_3(s\bar{c})$ states respectively and suggest that the $D_{sJ}(3044)^\pm$ is most likely the $D_{s1}(2P_1')$ or $D_{s1}(2P_1)$ states although it might be the $D_{s2}^*(2^3P_2)$ with the $DK$ final state too small to be observed with current statistics. Based on the predicted properties of excited states, that they not have too large a total width and they have a reasonable branching ratio to simple final states, we suggest states that should be able to be found in the near future. We expect that the tables of properties summarizing our results will be useful for interpreting future observations of charm and charm-strange mesons.