We study the twist-2 distribution amplitudes (DAs) and the decay constants of pseudoscalar light ($\pi$, $K$) and heavy ($D$, $D_s$, $B$, $B_s$) mesons as well as the longitudinally and transversely polarized vector light ($\rho$, $K^{*}$) and heavy ($D^{*}$, $D_s^{*}$, $B^{*}$, $B_s^{*}$) mesons in the light-front quark model with the Coulomb plus exponential-type confining potential $V_{\exp }=a+b{e}^{\alpha r}$ in addition to the hyperfine interaction. We first compute the mass spectra of ground state pseudoscalar and vector light and heavy mesons and fix the model parameters necessary for the analysis, applying the variational principle with the trial wave function up to the first three lowest order harmonic oscillator (HO) wave functions $\mathrm{\Phi }(x,{\mathbf{k}}_{\perp })=\sum _{n=1}^3{c}_n{\varphi }_{nS}$. We then obtain the numerical results for the corresponding decay constants of light and heavy mesons. We estimate the DAs, analyze their variation as a function of momentum fraction and compute the first six $\xi$-moments of the $B$ and $D$ mesons as well. We compare our results with the available experimental data as well as with the other theoretical model predictions.

• Received 25 February 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.014026

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Published by the American Physical Society