Radiative pi^pm gamma transitions of excited light-quark mesons in the covariant oscillator quark model

The COMPASS collaboration, as a part of their hadron spectroscopy program, is going to measure the radiative decay widths of light-quark mesons via the Primakoff reactions. In this letter we study the photon couplings of light-quark q qbar states in the covariant oscillator quark model and evaluate the transition rates for {rho(770), b_1(1235), a_1(1260), a_2(1320), pi_2(1670), rho_3(1690), rho(1700)}^pm to pi^pm gamma, which are expected to be measured by the COMPASS. Such photon couplings could be useful not only for understanding the internal structures of observed light-quark mesons and their quark-model classification but also for the ongoing experimental studies by COMPASS.