We discuss the production via fragmentation of excited heavy mesons and
baryons, and their subsequent decay. In particular, we consider the question of
whether a net polarization of the initial heavy quark may be detected, either
in a polarization of the final ground state or in anisotropies in the decay
products of the excited hadron. The result hinges in part on a nonperturbative
parameter which measures the net transverse alignment of the light degrees of
freedom in the fragmentation process. We use existing data on charmed mesons to
extract this quantity for certain excited mesons. Using this result, we
estimate the polarization retention of charm and bottom baryons.Comment: 37 pages, 3 figures available upon request, uses phyzzx forma
