EXCITED HEAVY MESONS BEYOND LEADING ORDER IN THE HEAVY-QUARK EXPANSION

We examine the decays of excited heavy mesons, including the leading p ower corrections to the heavy quark limit. We find a new and natural e xplanation for the large deviation of the width of the D-1(2420) from the heavy quark symmetry prediction. Our formalism leads to detailed p redictions for the properties of the excited bottom mesons, some of wh ich recently have been observed. Finally, we present a detailed analys is of the effect of power corrections and finite meson widths on the a ngular distributions which may be measured in heavy meson decays.