The radial Regge trajectories and leptonic widths of the isovector mesons

It is shown that two physical phenomena are important for high excitations: (i) the screening of the universal gluon-exchange potential and (ii) the flattening of the confining potential owing to creation of quark loops, and both effects are determined quantitatively. Taking the first effect into account, we predict the masses of the ground states with $l=0,1,2$ in agreement with experiment. The flattening effect ensures the observed linear behaviour of the radial Regge trajectories $M^2(n)=m_0^2 + n_r \mu^2$ GeV$^2$, where the slope $\mu^2$ is very sensitive to the parameter $\gamma$, which determines the weakening of the string tension $\sigma(r)$ at large distances. For the $\rho$-trajectory the linear behaviour starts with $n_r=1$ and the values $\mu^2=1.40(2)$~GeV$^2$ for $\gamma=0.40$ and $\mu^2=1.34(1)$~GeV$^2$ for $\gamma=0.45$ are obtained. For the excited states the leptonic widths: $\Gamma_{\rm ee}(\rho(775))=7.0(3)$~keV, $\Gamma_{\rm ee}(\rho(1450))=1.7(1)$~keV, $\Gamma_{\rm ee}(\rho(1900))=1.0(1)$~keV, $\Gamma_{\rm ee}(\rho(2150))=0.7(1)$~keV, and $\Gamma_{\rm ee}(1\,{}^3D_1)=0.26(5)$~keV are calculated, if these states are considered as purely $q\bar q$ states. The width $\Gamma_{\rm ee}(\rho(1700))$ increases if $\rho(1700)$ is mixed with the $2\,{}^3S_1$ state, giving for a mixing angle $\theta=21^\circ$ almost equal widths: $\Gamma_{\rm ee}(\rho(1700))=0.75(6)$~keV and $\Gamma_{\rm ee}(1450)=1.0(1)$~keV.