Heavy-quark binding and kinetic energies in heavy-light mesons and the constituent quark model

The spin-averaged binding energy and the hyperfine mass splitting of heavy-light mesons are investigated within the constituent quark model as a function of the inverse heavy-quark mass. It is shown that the so-called heavy-quark kinetic energy, -lambda1 / 2mQ, may differ remarkably from the non-relativistic expectation <p**2> / 2mQ, thanks to relativistic effects in the effective interquark potential for heavy-light mesons, which may yield substantial 1 / mQ corrections to the heavy-quark static limit. The determination of the difference of the hadronic parameter lambda1 in the B(u(d)) and B© mesons can provide information about the strength of relativistic effects in the interquark interaction.