Abstract
We apply the methodology of the operator product expansion to a number of processes involving the coupling of heavy quark-anti-quark mesons to light hadrons. Our methods apply to on-shell scattering processes and transitions, but they are strictly valid only when the quark masses are very heavy (of order 25 GeV). In this regime, however, we derive color gauge theory predictions for heavy meson-proton total cross sections, exclusive photoproduction, and Zweig-forbidden hadronic transitions; these heavy-quark computations are then used to estimate the corresponding quantities in the ϕ and Y systems. We discuss also the long-range interaction between two heavy-quark mesons.