Isospin symmetry breaking and the neutron-proton mass difference

QCD sum rules using polynomial kernels are used to evaluate the strong part of the proton-neutron mass difference DeltaM_np in a model independent fashion. The result for the mass difference turns out to depend sensitively on the value of the four quark condensate and reproduces the experimental value of DeltaM_np for ~ 2^2.Comment: Arguments detailed. Two references added. Version to appear in Physical Review C. DOI:10.1103/PhysRevC.00.00520

New Sum Rule Determination of the Nucleon Mass

A new QCD calculation of the mass of the nucleon is presented. It makes use of a polynomial kernel in the dispersion integrals tailored to practically eliminate the contribution of the unknown 1/2+ and 1/2- continuum. This approach avoids the arbitrariness and other drawbacks attached to the Borel kernel used in previous sum rules calculations. Our method yields stable results for the nucleon mass and coupling for standard values of the condensates. The prediction of the nucleon mass m_{N}=(0.945 \pm .045) GeV is in good agreement with experiment.Comment: 7 page

Isovector Meson Masses from QCD Sum Rules

We present a calculation of the masses of the isovector mesons ( vector, scalar and pseudoscalar including the established recurrences) using a new method of finite energy QCD sum rules. The method is based on the idea of choosing a suitable integration kernel which minimizes the occurring integral over the cut in the complex energy (squared) plane. We obtain remarkably stable results in a wide range R, where R is the radius of the integration contour. The sum rule predictions agree with the experimental values within the expected accuracy showing that QCD describes single resonances.Comment: Typos and misprints correcte