The Theory of Parity Violation in Few-Nucleon Systems

We review recent progress in the theoretical description of hadronic parity violation in few-nucleon systems. After introducing the different methods that have been used to study parity-violating observables we discuss the available calculations for reactions with up to five nucleons. Particular emphasis is put on effective field theory calculations where they exist, but earlier and complementary approaches are also presented. We hope this review will serve as a guide for those who wish to know what calculations are available and what further calculations need to be completed before we can claim to have a comprehensive picture of parity violation in few nucleon systems.Comment: 69 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Prog. Part. Nucl. Phy

Hadronic Lorentz Violation in Chiral Perturbation Theory Including the Coupling to External Fields

If any violation of Lorentz symmetry exists in the hadron sector, its ultimate origins must lie at the quark level. We continue the analysis of how the theories at these two levels are connected, using chiral perturbation theory. Considering a two-flavor quark theory, with dimension-4 operators that break Lorentz symmetry, we derive a low-energy theory of pions and nucleons that is invariant under local chiral transformations and includes the coupling to external fields. The pure meson and baryon sectors, as well as the couplings between them and the couplings to external electromagnetic and weak gauge fields, contain forms of Lorentz violation which depend on linear combinations of quark-level coefficients. In particular, at leading order the electromagnetic couplings depend on the very same combinations as appear in the free particle propagators. This means that observations of electromagnetic processes involving hadrons--such as vacuum Cerenkov radiation, which may be allowed in Lorentz-violating theories--can only reliably constrain certain particular combinations of quark coefficients.Comment: 21 page

Hadronic Parity Violation in Effective Field Theory

An effective field theory program to analyze and interpret hadronic parity violation in two-, three-, and few-nucleon systems is described. Observables can be parameterized in terms of five low-energy constants, which have to be determined from experimental input. Results for parity-violating observables in the two- and three-nucleon sectors are presented, including a discussion of the relevance of parity-violating three-nucleon interactions.Comment: 3 pages, talk given at PANIC 201