Strong decays of strange charmed P-wave mesons

Goldstone boson decays of P-wave Ds** mesons are studied within the framework of heavy hadron chiral perturbation theory. We first analyze the simplest single kaon decays of these strange charmed mesons. We derive a model-independent prediction for the width of Ds2 and use experimental information on Ds1 to constrain the S-wave contribution to D10 decay. Single and double pion decay modes are then discussed and shown to be significantly restricted by isospin conservation. We conclude that the pion channels may offer the best hope for detecting one strange member of an otherwise invisible P-wave flavor multiplet