The hadronic off-shell width of meson resonances

Within the resonance chiral effective theory we study the dressed propagators of the spin-1 fields, as arise from a Dyson-Schwinger resummation perturbatively constructed from loop diagrams with absorptive contributions in the s-channel. We apply the procedure to the vector pion form factor and the elastic pion-pion scattering to obtain the off-shell width of the rho_0 meson. We adopt a definition of the off-shell width of spin-1 meson resonances that satisfies the requirements of analyticity, unitarity, chiral symmetry and asymptotic behaviour ruled by QCD. To fulfil these constraints the resummation procedure cannot consist only of self-energy diagrams. Our width definition is shown to be independent of the formulation used to describe the spin-1 meson resonances.Comment: 1+12 pages, 4 figures. Minor changes in text. Conclusions unchanged. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Main phenomenological features of the spontaneous CP violation in SU(3) x U(1) models

We analyze the phenomenological consequences of assuming spontaneous CP violation in an SU(3) x U(1) model with three Higgs triplets and one sextuplet. After the identification of the relevant physical scalars, we estimate the contributions to the parameters $\Delta m_K$, $\epsilon$ and $\epsilon'$ coming from the Higgs-fermion couplings.Comment: 21 pages RevTex, epsf, epsfig, 4 figure

Deconfinement and chiral restoration in nonlocal SU(3) chiral quark models

We study the features of nonlocal SU(3) chiral quark models with wave function renormalization. Model parameters are determined from meson phenomenology, considering different nonlocal form factor shapes. In this context we analyze the characteristics of the deconfinement and chiral restoration transitions at finite temperature, introducing the couplings of fermions to the Polyakov loop. We analyze the results obtained for various thermodynamical quantities considering different Polyakov loop potentials and nonlocal form factors, in comparison with data obtained from lattice QCD calculations.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures. Discussion of results enlarged, figures modified, references added. Version to appear in Physical Review

Generalized Ginzburg-Landau approach to inhomogeneous phases in nonlocal chiral quark models

We analyze the presence of inhomogeneous phases in the QCD phase diagram within the framework of nonlocal chiral quark models. We concentrate in particular in the positions of the tricritical (TCP) and Lifshitz (LP) points, which are studied in a general context using a generalized Ginzburg-Landau approach. We find that for all the phenomenologically acceptable model parametrizations considered the TCP is located at a higher temperature and a lower chemical potential in comparison with the LP. Consequently, these models seem to favor a scenario in which the onset of the first order transition between homogeneous phases is not covered by an inhomogeneous, energetically favored phase.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. V2: Two references added, figure modified, minor changes in the text introduced. Matches version to be published in Physics Letters