Aspects of the low-energy constants in the chiral Lagrangian for charmed mesons

We investigate the numerical values of the low-energy constants in the chiral effective Lagrangian for the interactions between the charmed mesons and the lightest pseudoscalar mesons, the Goldstone bosons of the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry for QCD. This problem is tackled from two sides: estimates using the resonance exchange model, and positivity constraints from the general properties of the $S$-matrix including analyticity, crossing symmetry and unitarity. These estimates and constraints are compared with the values determined from fits to lattice data of the scattering lengths. Tensions are found, and possible reasons are discussed. We conclude that more data from lattice calculations and experiments are necessary to fix these constants better. As a by-product, we also estimate the coupling constant $g_{DDa_2}$, with $a_2$ the light tensor meson, via the QCD sum rule approach.