We investigate the structure of the instantaneous Bethe-Salpeter equation for qq-bound states in the general case of unequal quark masses and develop a numerical scheme for the calculation of mass spectra and Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes. In order to appreciate the merits of the various competing models beyond the reproduction of the mass spectra we present explicit formulas to calculate electroweak decays. The results for an explicit quark model will be compared to experimental data in a subsequent paper [1].

We present a covariant scheme to calculate mesonic transitions in the framework of the Salpeter equation for qq-states. The full Bethe Salpeter amplitudes are reconstructed from equal time amplitudes which were obtained in a previous paper [1] by solving the Salpeter equation for a confining plus an instanton induced interaction. This method is applied to calculate electromagnetic form factors and decay widths of low lying pseudoscalar and vector mesons including predictions for CEBAF experiments. We also describe the momentum transfer dependence for the processes π 0 , η, η ′ → γγ * .

The spectra and electroweak decay properties of light mesons are analyzed within the framework of the instantaneous Bethe-Salpeter equation. The interaction kernel comprises alternative spin-structures for a parameterization of confinement and a residual quark-antiquark interaction based on instanton effects. It is shown that only with a vector confinement the parameters can be chosen such as to yield an excellent description of the light pseudoscalar and vector mesons including weak and two photon decays. However it is found that it is not possible to reconcile this with the Regge behavior of higher lying meson states with the same parameter set.Comment: 12 pages, RevTeX, TK-93-1

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