HEAVY-QUARK FRAGMENTATION INTO HEAVY MESONS

We present a QCD based interpretation of heavy quark fragmentation whi ch utilizes the heavy quark mass expansion. By distinguishing between perturbative and non-perturbative QCD effects, we show how to reliably extract mass independent parameters characterizing the fragmentation function. Because these parameters are quark mass independent, this pr ocedure should permit tests of heavy quark symmetry. Furthermore, we s how that heavy quark mass corrections vanish at order m2/Q2 in QCD. Th ere also exist higher-twist corrections of order Am/Q2 and (alpha(QCD) /pi)/(m2/Q2)ln(Q2/m2) which we relate to the leading twist fragmentati on function.