Resurrection of the Sigma Meson

Abstract

It is shown from a very general model and an analysis of data on the lightest 0++ meson nonet that the f0(980) and f0(1200) resonance poles are two manifestations of the same ss state. Similarily the a0(980) and the a0(1450) are likely to be two manifestations of the same qq state. On the other hand, the uu+dd state, when unitarized and strongly distorted by hadronic mass shifts, becomes an extremely broad Breit-Wigner-like background, m=860 MeV, Gamma=880 MeV, with its pole at s=(0.158-i0.235) GeV^2. This we identify with the sigma meson required by models for spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry.Comment: 13 pages in Latex using RevTex (and psfig.sty), 4 figures available as ps files from N. To"rnqvist ([email protected]) on reques