Effective Meson Lagrangian with Chiral and Heavy Quark Symmetries from Quark Flavor Dynamics

By bosonization of an extended NJL model we derive an effective meson theory which describes the interplay between chiral symmetry and heavy quark dynamics. This effective theory is worked out in the low-energy regime using the gradient expansion. The resulting effective lagrangian describes strong and weak interactions of heavy $B$ and $D$ mesons with pseudoscalar Goldstone bosons and light vector and axial--vector mesons. Heavy meson weak decay constants, coupling constants and the Isgur--Wise function are predicted in terms of the model parameters partially fixed from the light quark sector. Explicit $SU(3)_F$ symmetry breaking effects are estimated and, if possible, confronted with experiment.