Chiral Unitary approach to meson-meson and meson-baryon interactions and nuclear applications

We report on recent nonperturbative techniques that combine the information of chiral Lagrangians (with and without resonances) with unitarity in coupled channels and other requirements of the S-matrix theory of the strong interactions. As a result, the region of applicability of such techniques is much larger than the one of Chiral Perturbation Theory allowing one to study also resonance physics. Applications to meson-meson and meson-baryon scattering, as well as to problems where pairs of mesons or a meson and a baryon appear in the initial or final state are shown. Implications in several nuclear problems are also discussed.Comment: 85 pages, Latex, Review paper to appear in Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys., vol. 4

Quantum Phase Transitions in the Interacting Boson Model: Integrability, level repulsion and level crossing

We study the quantum phase transition mechanisms that arise in the Interacting Boson Model. We show that the second-order nature of the phase transition from U(5) to O(6) may be attributed to quantum integrability, whereas all the first-order phase transitions of the model are due to level repulsion with one singular point of level crossing. We propose a model Hamiltonian with a true first-order phase transition for finite systems due to level crossings.Comment: Accepted in PR

Non-localities and Fermi motion corrections in K−K^- atoms

We evaluate the p-wave $K^-N$ amplitudes from the chiral Lagrangians and from there construct the p-wave part of the $K^-$ nucleus optical potential plus a small s-wave part induced from the elementary p-wave amplitude and the nuclear Fermi motion. Simultaneously, the momentum and energy dependence of the s-wave optical potential, previously developed, are taken into account and shown to generate a small p-wave correction to the optical potential. All the corrections considered are small compared to the leading s-wave potential, and lead to changes in the shifts and widths which are smaller than the experimental errors. A thorough study of the threshold region and low densities is conducted, revealing mathematical problems for which a physical solution is given.Comment: revised version, 28 pages, Latex, 8 postscript figures. Submitted to Nucl. Phys.

Radiative production of the Lambda(1405) resonance in K collisions on protons and nuclei

We have carried a theoretical study of the K^- p\to M B \gamma reaction with M B = K^-p, \bar{K}^0 n, \pi^- \Sigma^+, \pi^+ \Sigma^-, \pi^0 \Sigma^0, \pi^0 \Lambda, for K^- lab. momenta between 200 and 500 MeV/c, using a chiral unitary approach for the strong K^-p interaction with its coupled channels. The \Lambda(1405) resonance, which is generated dynamically in this approach, shows up clearly in the d\sigma/dM_I spectrum, providing new tests for chiral symmetry and the unitary approach, as well as information regarding the nature of the resonance. The photon detection alone, summing all channels, is shown to reproduce quite accurately the strength and shape of the \Lambda(1405) resonance. Analogous reactions in nuclei can provide much information on the properties of this resonance in a nuclear medium.Comment: 11 pages, 3 postscripts figure

Partial dynamical symmetry as a selection criterion for many-body interactions

We propose the use of partial dynamical symmetry (PDS) as a selection criterion for higher-order terms in situations when a prescribed symmetry is obeyed by some states and is strongly broken in others. The procedure is demonstrated in a first systematic classification of many-body interactions with SU(3) PDS that can improve the description of deformed nuclei. As an example, the triaxial features of the nucleus 156Gd are analyzed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Phys. Rev. C, in pres