Integrating out the heaviest quark in N--flavour ChPT

We extend a known method to integrate out the strange quark in three flavour chiral perturbation theory to the context of an arbitrary number of flavours. As an application, we present the explicit formulae to one--loop accuracy for the heavy quark mass dependency of the low energy constants after decreasing the number of flavours by one while integrating out the heaviest quark in N--flavour chiral perturbation theory.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure. Text and references added. To appear in EPJ

Chiral order and fluctuations in multi-flavour QCD

Multi-flavour (N_f>=3) Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) may exhibit instabilities due to vacuum fluctuations of sea q-bar q pairs. Keeping the fluctuations small would require a very precise fine-tuning of the low-energy constants L_4 and L_6 to L_4[crit](M_rho) = - 0.51 * 10^(-3), and L_6[crit](M_rho) = - 0.26 * 10^(-3). A small deviation from these critical values -- like the one suggested by the phenomenology of OZI-rule violation in the scalar channel -- is amplified by huge numerical factors inducing large effects of vacuum fluctuations. This would lead in particular to a strong N_f-dependence of chiral symmetry breaking and a suppression of multi-flavour chiral order parameters. A simple resummation is shown to cure the instability of N_f>=3 ChPT, but it modifies the standard expressions of some O(p^2) and O(p^4) low-energy parameters in terms of observables. On the other hand, for r=m_s/m > 15, the two-flavour condensate is not suppressed, due to the contribution induced by massive vacuum s-bar s pairs. Thanks to the latter, the standard two-flavour ChPT is protected from multi-flavour instabilities and could provide a well-defined expansion scheme in powers of non-strange quark masses.Comment: Published versio

Resumming QCD vacuum fluctuations in three-flavour Chiral Perturbation Theory

Due to its light mass of order Lambda_QCD, the strange quark can play a special role in Chiral Symmetry Breaking (ChSB): differences in the pattern of ChSB in the limits N_f=2 (m_u,m_d->0, m_s physical) and N_f=3 (m_u,m_d,m_s->0) may arise due to vacuum fluctuations of s-bar s pairs, related to the violation of the Zweig rule in the scalar sector and encoded in particular in the O(p^4) low-energy constants L_4 and L_6. In case of large fluctuations, we show that the customary treatment of SU(3)xSU(3) chiral expansions generate instabilities upsetting their convergence. We develop a systematic program to cure these instabilities by resumming nonperturbatively vacuum fluctuations of s-bar s pairs, in order to extract information about ChSB from experimental observations even in the presence of large fluctuations. We advocate a Bayesian framework for treating the uncertainties due to the higher orders. As an application, we present a three-flavour analysis of the low-energy pi-pi scattering and show that the recent experimental data imply a lower bound on the quark mass ratio 2m_s/(m_u+m_d) > 14 at 95 % confidence level. We outline how additional information may be incorporated to further constrain the pattern of ChSB in the N_f=3 chiral limit.Comment: 58 pages, 8 figure

Analysis and interpretation of new low-energy Pi-Pi scattering data

The recently published E865 data on charged K_e4 decays and Pi-Pi phases are reanalyzed to extract values of the two S-wave scattering lengths, of the subthreshold parameters alpha and beta, of the low-energy constants l3-bar and l4-bar as well as of the main two-flavour order parameters: and F_pi in the limit m_u = m_d = 0 taken at the physical value of the strange quark mass. Our analysis is exclusively based on direct experimental information on Pi-Pi phases below 800 MeV and on the new solutions of the Roy equations by Ananthanarayan et al. The result is compared with the theoretical prediction relating 2 a_0^0 - 5 a_0^2 and the scalar radius of the pion, which was obtained in two-loop Chiral Perturbation Theory. A discrepancy at the 1-sigma level is found and commented upon.Comment: Published version, to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

Finite-volume analysis of NfN_{f}-induced chiral phase transitions

In the framework of Euclidean QCD on a torus, we study the spectrum of the Dirac operator through inverse moments of its eigenvalues, averaged over topological sets of gluonic configurations. The large-volume dependence of these sums is related to chiral order parameters. We sketch how these results may be applied to lattice simulations in order to investigate the chiral phase transitions occurring when N_f increases. In particular, we demonstrate how Dirac inverse moments at different volumes could be compared to detect in a clean way the phase transition triggered by the suppression of the quark condensate and by the enhancement of the Zweig-rule violation in the vacuum channel

Integrating out strange quarks in ChPT

We study three flavour chiral perturbation theory in a limit where the strange quark mass is much larger than the external momenta and the up and down quark masses, and where the external fields are those of two-flavour chiral perturbation theory. In this case, the theory reduces to the one of SU(2)_L x SU(2)_R. Through this reduction, one can work out the strange quark mass dependence of the LECs in the two-flavour case. We present the pertinent relations at two-loop order for F,B and l_i.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, References added. Due to a typo in a form program, we missed a finite, scale independent part in l_7. Is now included. Version to appear in Phys.Lett.

Vacuum fluctuations of \bar{q}q and values of low-energy constants

We discuss the influence of the vacuum fluctuations of \bar{q}q pairs on low-energy constants and condensates. The analysis of the Goldstone boson masses and decay constants shows that the three-flavour condensate and some low-energy constants are very sensitive to the value of L_6, which measures the Zweig-rule violation in the scalar channel. A chiral sum rule based on experimental data in this channel is used to constrain L_6, confirming a significant decrease between the two- and the three-flavor condensates.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. Eq (14) correcte

Extracting CP violation and strong phase in D decays by using quantum correlations in psi(3770)-> D0\bar{D}0 -> (V1V2)(V3V4) and psi(3770)->D0\bar{D}0 -> (V1V2)(K pi)

The charm quark offers interesting opportunities to cross-check the mechanism of CP violation precisely tested in the strange and beauty sectors. In this paper, we exploit the angular and quantum correlations in the D\bar{D} pairs produced through the decay of the psi(3770) resonance in a charm factory to investigate CP-violation in two different ways. We build CP-violating observables in psi(3770) -> D\bar{D} -> (V_1V_2)(V_3 V_4) to isolate specific New Physics effects in the charm sector. We also consider the case of psi(3770) -> D\bar{D} -> (V_1V_2)(K\pi) decays, which provide a new way to measure the strong phase difference delta between Cabibbo-favored and doubly-Cabibbo suppressed D decays required in the determination of the CKM angle gamma. Neglecting the systematics, we give a first rough estimate of the sensitivities of these measurements at BES-III with an integrated luminosity of 20 fb^-1 at psi(3770) peak and at a future Super tau-charm factory with a luminosity of 10^35 cm^-2.s^-1.Comment: 13 pages

MRI/TRUS data fusion for brachytherapy

BACKGROUND: Prostate brachytherapy consists in placing radioactive seeds for tumour destruction under transrectal ultrasound imaging (TRUS) control. It requires prostate delineation from the images for dose planning. Because ultrasound imaging is patient- and operator-dependent, we have proposed to fuse MRI data to TRUS data to make image processing more reliable. The technical accuracy of this approach has already been evaluated. METHODS: We present work in progress concerning the evaluation of the approach from the dosimetry viewpoint. The objective is to determine what impact this system may have on the treatment of the patient. Dose planning is performed from initial TRUS prostate contours and evaluated on contours modified by data fusion. RESULTS: For the eight patients included, we demonstrate that TRUS prostate volume is most often underestimated and that dose is overestimated in a correlated way. However, dose constraints are still verified for those eight patients. CONCLUSIONS: This confirms our initial hypothesis