Relating production and masses of the vector and P-wave mesons for light and heavy flavours at LEP

Abstract The production rates of primary vector and P -wave mesons in Z 0 hadronic decays are analysed. The mass dependence of production rates for the bottom, charm, strange charm and three families of the light-flavour mesons is found to be very similar, allowing to relate the relative production rates for mesons with different flavours and, possibly, their masses. The strange axial mesons K 1 (1273) and K 1 (1402) might be assigned to the 1 + (1/2) and 1 + (3/2) levels degenerate with the 0 + (1/2) and 2 + (3/2) levels of the K ∗ 0 (1430) and K ∗ 2 (1430), respectively, if the observed K ∗ 0 (1430) mass is replaced by its “bare” q q mass corresponding to the K -matrix pole and close to the K 1 (1273) mass. Then the 0 + (1/2) and 1 + (1/2) levels are below the 1 + (3/2) and 2 + (3/2) levels for the strange, charm and bottom mesons.