Improving the convergence of the chiral expansion for nuclear forces II: Low phases and the deuteron

Recently, we have proposed a new cut-off scheme for pion loop integrals in the two-pion exchange potential. This method allows for a consistent implementation of constraints from pion-nucleon scattering and has been successfully applied to peripheral nucleon-nucleon partial waves. We now consider low partial waves in the non-perturbative regime, where the regularized Lippmann-Schwinger equation has to be solved in order to generate the bound and scattering states. We observe an improved description of most of the phase shifts when going from next-to- to next-to-next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion. We also find a good description of the deuteron properties. In addition, the new cut-off scheme allows to avoid the presence of unphysical deeply bound states. We discuss the cut-off dependence of the four-nucleon low-energy constants and show that their numerical values can be understood in terms of resonance saturation. This connects the effective field theory approach to boson exchange phenomenology

Isospin breaking in the pion-nucleon scattering lengths

We analyze isospin breaking through quark mass differences and virtual photons in the pion-nucleon scattering lengths in all physical channels in the framework of covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Quark mass dependence of the pion vector form factor

We examine the quark mass dependence of the pion vector form factor, particularly the curvature (mean quartic radius). We focus our study on the consequences of assuming that the coupling constant of the rho to pions, g(rho pi pi), is largely independent of the quark mass while the quark mass dependence of the rho mass is given by recent lattice data. By employing the Omnes representation we can provide a very clean estimate for a certain combination of the curvature and the square radius, whose quark mass dependence could be determined from lattice computations. This study provides an independent access to the quark mass dependence of the rho pi pi coupling and in this way a non-trivial check of the systematics of chiral extrapolations. We also provide an improved value for the curvature for physical values for the quark masses. namely (r(4)) = 0.73 +/- 0.09 fm(4) or equivalently c(v) = 4.00 +/- 0.50 GeV-4. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Impact of the finite volume effects on the chiral behavior of fK and BK

We discuss the finite volume corrections to fK and BK by using the one-loop chiral perturbation theory in full, quenched, and partially quenched QCD. We show that the finite volume corrections to these quantities dominate the physical (infinite volume) chiral logarithms.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures [published version

Low-energy QCD: Chiral coefficients and the quark-quark interaction

A detailed investigation of the low-energy chiral expansion is presented within a model truncation of QCD. The truncation allows for a phenomenological description of the quark-quark interaction in a framework which maintains the global symmetries of QCD and permits a $1/N_c$ expansion. The model dependence of the chiral coefficients is tested for several forms of the quark-quark interaction by varying the form of the running coupling, $\alpha (q^2)$, in the infrared region. The pattern in the coefficients that arises at tree level is consistent with large $N_c$ QCD, and is related to the model truncation.Comment: 28 pages, Latex, 6 postscript figures available on request to [email protected]

Chiral unitary approach to S-wave meson baryon scattering in the strangeness S=0 sector

We study the S-wave interaction of mesons with baryons in the strangeness S=0 sector in a coupled channel unitary approach. The basic dynamics is drawn from the lowest order meson baryon chiral Lagrangians. Small modifications inspired by models with explicit vector meson exchange in the t-channel are also considered. In addition the pi pi N channel is included and shown to have an important repercussion in the results, particularly in the isospin 3/2 sector.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 21 figure

Parity violation in nuclear systems

Parity violation in nuclear systems is reviewed. A few ingredients relevant to the description of the parity-violating nucleon-nucleon force in terms of meson exchanges are reminded. Effects in nuclear systems are then considered. They involve pp scattering, some complex nuclei and the deuteron system.Comment: 4 pages, to be published in the proceedings of the worksho

Vector Manifestation and Fate of Vector Mesons in Dense Matter

We describe in-medium properties of hadrons in dense matter near chiral restoration using a Wilsonian matching to QCD of an effective field theory with hidden local symmetry at the chiral cutoff $\Lambda$. We find that chiral symmetry is restored in vector manifestation \`a la Harada and Yamawaki at a critical matter density $n_c$. We express the critical density in terms of QCD correlators in dense matter at the matching scale. In a manner completely analogous to what happens at the critical $N_f^c$ and at the critical temperature $T^c$, the vector meson mass is found to vanish (in the chiral limit) at chiral restoration. This result provides a support for Brown-Rho scaling predicted a decade ago.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure

Radiative open charm decay of the Y(3940), Z(3930), X(4160) resonances

We determine the radiative decay amplitudes for decay into $D^*$ and $\bar{D} \gamma$, or $D^*_s$ and $\bar{D}_s \gamma$ of some of the charmonium like states classified as X,Y,Z resonances, plus some other hidden charm states which are dynamically generated from the interaction of vector mesons with charm. The mass distributions as a function of the $\bar{D} \gamma$ or $\bar{D}_s \gamma$ invariant mass show a peculiar behavior as a consequence of the $D^* \bar{D}^*$ nature of these states. The experimental search of these magnitudes can shed light on the nature of these states.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure

Scalar susceptibility and chiral symmetry restoration in nuclei

We study the nuclear modification of the scalar QCD susceptibility, calculated as the derivative of the quark condensate with respect to the quark mass. We show that it has two origins. One is the low lying nuclear excitations. At normal nuclear density this part is constrained by the nuclear incompressibility. The other part arises from the individual nucleon response and it is dominated by the pion cloud contribution. Numerically the first contribution dominates. The resulting increase in magnitude of the scalar susceptibility at normal density is such that it becomes close to the pseudoscalar susceptibility, while it is quite different in the vacuum. We interpret it as a consequence of chiral symmetry restoration in nuclei.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure