On the analytic properties of chiral solitons in the presence of the ω\omega--meson

A thorough study is performed of the analytical properties of the fermion determinant for the case that the time components of (axial) vector fields do not vanish. For this purpose the non--Hermitian Euclidean Dirac Hamiltonian is generalized to the whole complex plane. The Laurent series are proven to reduce to Taylor series for the corresponding eigenvalues and --functions as long as field configurations are assumed for which level crossings do not occur. The condition that no level crossings appears determines the radius convergence. However, the need for regularization prohibits the derivation of an analytic energy functional because real and imaginary parts of the eigenvalues are treated differently. Consistency conditions for a Minkowski energy functional are extracted from global gauge invariance and the current field identity for the baryon current. Various treatments of the Nambu--Jona--Lasinio soliton are examined with respect to these conditions. Motivated by the studies of the Laurent series for the energy functional the Euclidean action is expanded in terms of the $\omega$--field. It is argued that for this expansion the proper--time regularization scheme has to be imposed on the operator level rather than on an expression in terms of the one--particle eigenenergies. The latter treatment is plagued by the inexact assumption that the Euclidean Dirac Hamiltonian and its Hermitian conjugate can be diagonalized simultaneously. It is then evident that approaches relying on counting powers of the $\omega$--field in the one--particle eigenenergies areComment: UNITU-THEP-13/1994, 34 LaTeX pages, 5 figures appended as postscript fil

Hadron widths in mixed-phase matter

We derive classically an expression for a hadron width in a two-phase region of hadron gas and quark-gluon plasma (QGP). The presence of QGP gives hadrons larger widths than they would have in a pure hadron gas. We find that the $\phi$ width observed in a central Au+Au collision at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV/nucleon is a few MeV greater than the width in a pure hadron gas. The part of observed hadron widths due to QGP is approximately proportional to $(dN/dy)^{-1/3}$.Comment: 8 pages, latex, no figures, KSUCNR-002-9

Baryons as Chiral Solitons in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio Model

The description of baryons as chiral solitons of the Nambu--Jona--Lasinio (NJL) model is reviewed. A motivation for the soliton description of baryons is provided from large $N_C$ QCD. Rigorous results on the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in QCD are discussed. It is then argued that the NJL model provides a fair description of low--energy hadron physics. The NJL model is therefore employed to mimic the low--energy chiral flavor dynamics of QCD. The model is bosonized by functional integral techniques and the physical content of the emerging effective meson theory is discussed. In particular, its relation to the Skyrme model is established. The static soliton solutions of the bosonized NJL model are found, their properties discussed, and the influence of various meson fields studied. These considerations provide strong support of Witten's conjecture that baryons can be understood as soliton solutions of effective meson theories. The chiral soliton of the NJL model is then quantized in a semiclassical fashion and various static properties of the nucleon are studied. The dominating $1/N_C$ corrections to the semiclassically quantized soliton are investigated. Time--dependent meson fluctuations off the chiral soliton are explored and employed to estimate the quantum corrections to the soliton mass. Finally, hyperons are described as chiral solitons of the NJL model. This is done in both, the collective rotational approach of Yabu and Ando as well as in the bound state approach of Callan and Klebanov.Comment: 120 pages, uuencoded and compressed postscript file is submitted, hardcopy available upon request

Effective Chiral Meson Lagrangian For The Extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio Model

We present a derivation of the low-energy effective meson Lagrangian of the extended Nambu -- Jona-Lasinio (ENJL) model. The case with linear realization of broken $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ chiral symmetry is considered. There are two crucial points why this revision is needed. Firstly it is the explicit chiral symmetry breaking effect. On the basis of symmetry arguments we show that relevant contributions related with the current quark mass terms are absent from the effective Lagrangians derived so far in the literature. Secondly we suggest a chiral covariant way to avoid non-diagonal terms responsible for the pseudoscalar -- axial-vector mixing from the effective meson Lagrangian. In the framework of the linear approach this diagonalization has not been done correctly. We discuss as well the $SU(2)\times SU(2)/SU(2)$ coset space parametrization for the revised Lagrangian (nonlinear ansatz). Our Lagrangian differs in an essential way from those that have been derived till now on the basis of both linear and nonlinear realizations of chiral symmetry.Comment: 23 pages, plain LaTex, no figure

Pion light-cone wave function and pion distribution amplitude in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model

We compute the pion light-cone wave function and the pion quark distribution amplitude in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. We use the Pauli-Villars regularization method and as a result the distribution amplitude satisfies proper normalization and crossing properties. In the chiral limit we obtain the simple results, namely phi_pi(x)=1 for the pion distribution amplitude, and = -M / f_pi^2 for the second moment of the pion light-cone wave function, where M is the constituent quark mass and f_pi is the pion decay constant. After the QCD Gegenbauer evolution of the pion distribution amplitude good end-point behavior is recovered, and a satisfactory agreement with the analysis of the experimental data from CLEO is achieved. This allows us to determine the momentum scale corresponding to our model calculation, which is close to the value Q_0 = 313 MeV obtained earlier from the analogous analysis of the pion parton distribution function. The value of is, after the QCD evolution, around (400 MeV)^2. In addition, the model predicts a linear integral relation between the pion distribution amplitude and the parton distribution function of the pion, which holds at the leading-order QCD evolution.Comment: mistake in Eq.(38) correcte

Clinical performance of an analytically validated assay in comparison to microarray technology to assess PITX2 DNA-methylation in breast cancer

Significant evidence has accumulated that DNA-methylation of the paired-like homeodomain transcription factor 2 (PITX2) gene can serve as a prognostic and predictive biomarker in breast cancer. PITX2 DNA-methylation data have been obtained so far from microarray and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based research tests. The availability of an analytically validated in vitro methylation-specific real-time PCR assay format (therascreen PITX2 RGQ PCR assay) intended for the determination of the percent methylation ratio (PMR) in the (PITX2) promoter 2 prompted us to investigate whether the clinical performance of these different assay systems generate comparable clinical outcome data. Mathematically converted microarray data of a previous breast cancer study (n = 204) into PMR values leads to a PITX2 cut-off value at PMR 14.73. Recalculation of the data to experimentally equivalent PMRs with the PCR PITX2 assay leads to a cut-off value at PMR 12 with the highest statistical significance. This cut-off predicts outcome of high-risk breast cancer patients to adjuvant anthracycline-based chemotherapy (n = 204; Hazard Ratio 2.48; p < 0.001) comparable to microarray generated results (n = 204; Hazard ratio 2.32; p < 0.0001). The therascreen PITX2 RGQ PCR assay is an analytically validated test with high reliability and robustness and predicts outcome of high-risk breast cancer patients to anthracycline-based chemotherapy