Cusps in K --> 3 pi decays

The pion mass difference generates a pronounced cusp in K --> 3 pi decays. As has recently been pointed out by Cabibbo and Isidori, an accurate measurement of the cusp may allow one to pin down the S-wave pi pi scattering lengths to high precision. Here, we present and illustrate an effective field theory framework that allows one to determine the structure of this cusp in a straightforward manner. The strictures imposed by analyticity and unitarity are respected automatically.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, uses Elsevier styl

Isospin-breaking corrections in the pion-deuteron scattering length

It is shown that isospin-breaking corrections to the pion-deuteron scattering length can be very large, because of the vanishing of the isospin-symmetric contribution to this scattering length at leading order in chiral perturbation theory. We further demonstrate that these corrections can explain the bulk of the discrepancy between the recent experimental data on pionic hydrogen and pionic deuterium. We also give the first determination of the electromagnetic low-energy constant f1.Comment: 4 pages, 1 postscript figure, uses REVTEX styl

Chiral unitary meson-baryon dynamics in the presence of resonances: Elastic pion-nucleon scattering

We develop a novel approach to chiral meson-baryon dynamics incorporating unitarity constraints and explicit resonance fields. It is based on the most general structure of any pion-nucleon partial wave amplitude neglecting the unphysical cuts as derived from the N/D method. This amplitude is then matched to the one-loop heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory result at third order and to tree level exchanges of baryon- and meson states in the s,t and u channels. This generates the left-hand cuts. The unitarization procedure does not involve form factors or regulator functions. The resonance parameters are determined from fits to the S- and P-wave pion-nucleon partial wave amplitudes for energies up to 1.3 GeV. In particular, the $\Delta (1232)$ is accurately reproduced whereas scalar and vector meson couplings are less precisely pinned down. We also obtain a satisfactory description of the $\pi$N threshold parameters. Further extensions of this method to coupled channels and the three-flavor case are briefly discussed.Comment: 23 pp, LaTeX2e, 10 fig

Cusps in K_L --> 3 pi decays

The pion mass difference generates a pronounced cusp in K --> 3 pi decays, the strength of which is related to the pi pi S-wave scattering lengths. We apply an effective field theory framework developed earlier to evaluate the amplitudes for K_L --> 3 pi decays in a systematic manner, where the strictures imposed by analyticity and unitarity are respected automatically. The amplitudes for the decay eta --> 3 pi are also given.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, uses Elsevier styl

Near threshold ppbar enhancement in the J/psi -> omega ppbar decay

The near-threshold behavior of the ppbar invariant mass spectrum from the J/psi -> omega ppbar decay reported recently by the BES Collaboration is analyzed. Contrary to the statement made by the BES Collaboration itself our study demonstrates that there is indeed a noticeable enhancement in the ppbar invariant mass spectrum near threshold. Moreover, this enhancement is nicely reproduced by the final state interaction in the relevant 11S0 ppbar partial wave as given by the Julich nucleon--antinucleon model. Therefore, and again contrary to the statement by the BES Collaboration, their new data on J/psi -> omega ppbar decay in fact strongly support the FSI interpretation of the ppbar enhancement, seen also in other decay reactions.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

Generalized parton correlation functions for a spin-1/2 hadron

The fully unintegrated, off-diagonal quark-quark correlator for a spin-1/2 hadron is parameterized in terms of so-called generalized parton correlation functions. Such objects, in particular, can be considered as mother distributions of generalized parton distributions on the one hand and transverse momentum dependent parton distributions on the other. Therefore, our study provides new, model-independent insights into the recently proposed nontrivial relations between generalized and transverse momentum dependent parton distributions. We find that none of these relations can be promoted to a model-independent status. As a by-product we obtain the first complete classification of generalized parton distributions beyond leading twist. The present paper is a natural extension of our previous corresponding analysis for spin-0 hadrons.Comment: 41 pages, 3 figures; v2: added referenc

Neutron-proton mass difference in nuclear matter

Isospin-breaking effects in nuclear matter are studied in the framework of a medium-modified Skyrme model. The proposed effective Lagrangian incorporates both the medium influence of the surrounding nuclear environment on the single nucleon properties and an explicit isospin-breaking effect in the mesonic sector. The approach predicts that the neutron-proton mass difference decreases in isospin-symmetric nuclear matter but by a very small amount only.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, revised versio

A chiral covariant approach to ρρ\rho\rho scattering

We analyze vector meson - vector meson scattering in a unitarized chiral theory based on a chiral covariant framework. We show that a pole assigned to the the scalar meson $f_0(1370)$ can be dynamically generated from the $\rho\rho$ interaction, while this is not the case for the tensor meson $f_2(1270)$ as found in earlier works. We show that the generation of the tensor state is untenable due to an artefact of the extreme non-relativistic kinematics used before. We further consider the effects arising from the coupling of channels with different orbital angular momenta. We suggest to use the formalism outlined here to obtain more reliable results for the dynamical generation of resonances in the vector-vector interaction.Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures, extended version, new section with an improved solution method, results and conclusions unchange

Scalar mesons in a finite volume

Using effective field theory methods, we discuss the extraction of the mass and width of the scalar mesons f0(980) and a0(980) from the finite-volume spectrum in lattice QCD. In particular, it is argued that the nature of these states can be studied by invoking twisted boundary conditions, as well as investigating the quark mass dependence of the spectrum.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure