Decays of excited pseudoscalar and vector mesons in the chiral U(3) x U(3)model

A chiral U(3) x U(3) Lagrangian containing, besides the usual meson fields, their first radial excitations is considered. The Lagrangian is derived by bosonization of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) quark model with separable no nlocal interactions. The spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry is governe d by the NJL gap equation. The first radial excitations of the pion, rho, o mega, kaon, K* and phi are described with the help of form factors. The val ues for the decay widths for the precesses pi' --> rho pi, rho' --> 2 pi, r ho' --> omega pi, omega' --> rho pi, K*' --> rho K, K*' --> K*pi, K*' --> K pi, phi' --> K*K, phi' --> (K) over bar K, K' --> K rho, K' --> K*pi and K ' --> K2 pi are obtained in satisfactory agreement with the experimental da ta.