Vacuum properties of open charmed mesons in a chiral symmetric model

We present a $U(4)_R \times U(4)_L$ chirally symmetric model, which in addition to scalar and pseudoscalar mesons also includes vector and axial-vector mesons. A part from the three new parameters pertaining to the charm degree of freedom, the parameters of the model are fixed from the $N_f=3$ flavor sector. We calculate open charmed meson masses and the weak decay constants of nonstrange open charm $D$ and strange open charm $D_S$. We also evaluate the (OZI-dominant) strong decays of open charmed mesons. The results are turn out to be in quantitative agreement with experimental data.