Phenomenological predictions of the properties of the Bc system -: art. no. 074006

We present a comprehensive calculation of the energies, splittings and electromagnetic decays of the low-lying levels of the bottom charmed meson system. In order to incorporate running coupling constant effects, we choose Richardson's potential for the central potential and take the spin-dependent potentials from the radiative one-loop calculation of Pantaleone, Tye and Ng. The effects of a nonperturbative spin-orbit potential are also included. Our parameters are determined from the low-lying levels of charmonium (average deviation of 19.9 MeV) and of the upsilon system (average deviation of 4.3 MeV). We carry out a detailed comparison with the calculations of Eichten and Quigg and the lattice calculations of the NRQCD Collaboration. Our predicted result for the ground state energy is 6286(-6)(+15) MeV. Our results are generally in agreement with earlier calculations. However, we find the two lowest 1(+) states to be very close to the j-j limit, in contrast with some of the earlier calculations. The implications of this finding for the photon spectra of the 1P and 2S states are discussed in detail. Some strategies for the observation of these states are discussed, and a table of their cascades to the ground state is presented. Our calculated value for the ground state lifetime is 0.38+/-0.03 ps, in good agreement with the recent CDF measurement. [S0556-2821(99)03517-1].