A continuum approach to quark-antiquark bound-states is used to determine the electromagnetic form factors of pionlike mesons with masses $m_{0^{-}}/\mathrm{GeV}=0.14$, 0.47, 0.69, 0.83 on a spacelike domain that extends to $Q^2\lesssim 10{\mathrm{GeV}}^2$. The results enable direct comparisons with contemporary lattice-QCD calculations of heavy-pion form factors at large values of momentum transfer and aid in understanding them. They also reveal, inter alia, that the form factor of the physical pion provides the best opportunity for verification of the factorized hard-scattering formula relevant to this class of exclusive processes and that this capacity diminishes steadily as the meson mass increases.

• Received 28 August 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.98.091505