In this work we have performed a detailed study of chiral nuclear forces at N4LO approximation applied to selected channels of the neutron-proton ($n p$) scattering. The idea is to analyse the different contributions to the nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) potential by separating the part coming from the exchange of pions and the one coming from the contact interactions. We consider two state-of-the-art chiral interactions at N4LO which are constructed using different regularization procedures: the non-local Idaho-Salamanca force and the semi-local interaction from the Bochum group. In order to compare the two types of regularization we consider both interactions with a 500 MeV cutoff and to analyse the cutoff dependence we select the Bochum potential with three different cutoff values: 500, 450 and 400 MeV. Our results show that the balance between pion exchanges and contact interactions depends strongly on the regularization procedure. The non-local angle-independent regularization of both components of the interaction implemented in the Idaho-Salamanca potential make the contact terms to be present at large distances while the local regularization of the pion exchanges in the Bochum potential restricts the contact interactions to small distances. Also, the value of the cutoff affects the strength of the potential but the interplay between pion exchanges and contact terms remains qualitatively the same.
Chirally invariant Lagrangian containing nucleon, pion and chiral scalar fields is considered. A consistent scheme is proposed for obtaining the nonrelativistic operator of pion absorption by NN-pair taking into account the chiral scalar exchange. An important role of the contact interaction is pointed out.D
The thermal and nonthermal pion production by sigma decay and its relation with chiral symmetry restoration in a hot and dense matter are investigated. The nonthermal decay into pions of sigma mesons which are popularly produced in chiral symmetric phase leads to a low-momentum pion enhancement as a possible signature of chiral phase transition at finite temperature and density.
We discuss medium modifications of the unitarized pion-pion interaction in the nuclear medium. We incorporate both the effects of chiral symmetry restoration and the influence of collective nuclear pionic modes, originating from the p-wave coupling of the pion to delta-hole configurations. We show how the resulting strong enhancement of the sigma-meson spectral function is related to large fluctuations of the condensate associated with the partial restoration of chiral symmetry.
This paper is devoted to the interplay between p-wave, s-wave pion-nucleon/ nucleus interaction and in-medium pion-pion interaction with special emphasis on the role of the nuclear pionic scalar density driving a large amount of chiral symmetry restoration. In particular we show that the $πNN$ coupling constant and the Goldberger-Treiman relation are preserved in the nuclear medium within certain conditions. We also discuss the related problem of the in-medium pion-pion strength function.
The chiral two-pion exchange component of the long-range pp interaction is studied in an energy-dependent partial-wave analysis. We demonstrate its presence and importance, and determine the chiral parameters c_i (i=1,3,4). The values agree well with those obtained from pion-nucleon amplitudes.
The s-wave isoscalar amplitude for pion-pion scattering in a nuclear medium is evaluated using a nonperturbative unitary coupled channels method and the standard chiral Lagrangians. The method has proved successful to describe the pion-pion properties in the scalar isoscalar channel up to 1.2 GeV giving rise to poles in the t matrix for the f0(980) and the sigma. The extension of the method to the nuclear medium implies not only the renormalization of the pions in the medium, but also the introduction of interaction terms related to contact terms in the pion-nucleon to pion-pion-nucleon intera…
We extend an effective Lagrangian embodying broken scale and chiral symmetry to include explicit chiral symmetry breaking and an additional chiral invariant term which allows for an axial coupling constant greater than unity. We also include a chiral Lagrangian for the isotriplet vector mesons which leads to a renormalization of the pion field. The properties of nuclear matter and nuclei, low energy $πN$ scattering and the behavior of quantities such as the pion mass and axial coupling at finite density are discussed.
Two- and three-pion correlations are investigated in cases when disoriented chiral condensate (DCC) occurs. A chaoticity and weight factor are used as measures of two- and three-pion correlations, and the various models for DCC are investigated. Some models are found to yield the chaoticity and weight factor in a reasonable agreement with recent experimental data.
We consider an ``oriented'' chiral condensate produced in the squeezed states of the effective field theory with time- and space-dependent pion mass parameter. We discuss the general properties of the solution, identifying condensate modes and determining the resulting pion distributions. The implementation of the dynamics in the form of sudden perturbation allows us to look for exact solutions. In the region of condensation, the dramatic increase in pion production and charge fluctuations are demonstrated.
Using heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, we have calculated all the diagrams up to two-loop order which contribute to the S-wave pion self-energy in symmetric nuclear matter. Some subtleties related to the definition of pion fields are discussed. The in-medium pion mass is turned out to be increased by only (5 - 6) per cents in normal nuclear matter density, without any off-shell ambiguity.
The decay process sigma to 2 pions at high temperature and density and its relation with chiral phase transition are discussed in the framework of the NJL model. The decay rate for the process sigma to 2 pions is calculated in the whole temperature and density region. The contribution of the final state pion statistics to the decay rate is discussed. The maximum decay rate at different chemical potential is computed. Finally, we investigate the relation between the starting point of the decay process and the critical point of the first-order chiral phase transition.
We consider two methods to find the effective parameters of the pion traversing a nuclear medium. One is the first order chiral perturbation theoretic evaluation of the pion pole contribution to the two-point function of the axial-vector current. The other is the exact, first order virial expansion of the pion self-energy. We find that, although the results of chiral perturbation theory are not valid at normal nuclear density, those from the virial expansion may be reliable at such density. The latter predicts both the mass-shift and the in-medium decay width of the pion to be small, of about …
We introduce the chiral symmetry in the description of finite nuclei with the hope to unify the hadron and nuclear physics. This trial becomes possible by introducing finite pion mean field, which contributes largely to enhance the spin-orbit splitting so as to provide the j-j magic number. We discuss the qualitative consequence of the finite pion mean field for various observables.
We derive the leading two-pion exchange contributions to the two-nucleon electromagnetic current operator in the framework of chiral effective field theory using the method of unitary transformation. Explicit results for the current and charge densities are given in momentum and coordinate space.
Extensive data on strong interaction effects in pionic atoms are analyzed with a density-dependent isovector scattering amplitude suggested recently by Weise to result from a density dependence of the pion decay constant. Most of the so-called `missing s-wave repulsion' is removed when adopting this approach, thus indicating a partial chiral symmetry restoration in dense matter. The resulting potentials describe quite well also elastic scattering of 20 MeV pions on Ca. Further tests with elastic scattering are desirable.
The renormalization of the NN interaction with the Chiral Two Pion Exchange Potential computed using relativistic baryon chiral perturbation theory is considered. The short distance singularity reduces the number of counter-terms to about a half as those in the heavy-baryon expansion. Phase shifts and deuteron properties are evaluated and a general overall agreement is observed.
A survey is given of the evolution from Yukawa's early work, via the understanding of the pion as a Nambu-Goldstone boson of spontaneously broken chiral symmetry in QCD, to modern developments in the theory of the nucleus based on the chiral effective field theory representing QCD in its low-energy limit.
We derive the leading one-loop contribution to the one-pion exchange and short-range two-nucleon electromagnetic current operator in the framework of chiral effective field theory. The derivation is carried out using the method of unitary transformation. Explicit results for the current and charge densities are given in momentum and coordinate space.
We review the implementation of a q-deformed fermionic algebra in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model (NJL). The gap equations obtained from a deformed condensate as well as from the deformation of the NJL Hamiltonian are discussed. The effect of both temperature and deformation in the chiral symmetry restoration process as well as in the pion properties is studied.
The two-body currents for s-wave pion photoproduction on the NN system are derived to O(Q^4) in chiral perturbation theory. For the interesting case of 3S1 <-> 1S0 transitions, we show that an axial isovector two-nucleon contact term connects the short-distance physics of pion photoproduction to pion production and several important electroweak reactions. We also find that the standard chiral Lagrangian gives a gamma pi pi N N vertex that have not been explicitly mentioned in previous literature. The corresponding Feynman rule is presented here and some processes where it should be important a…
We present and discuss a systematic calculation, based on two-loop chiral perturbation theory, of the pion-nuclear s-wave optical potential. A proper treatment of the explicit energy dependence of the off-shell pion self-energy together with (electromagnetic) gauge invariance of the Klein-Gordon equation turns out to be crucial. Accurate data for the binding energies and widths of the 1s and 2p levels in pionic ^{205}Pb and ^{207}Pb are well reproduced, and the notorious "missing repulsion" in the pion-nuclear s-wave optical potential is accounted for. The connection with the in-medium change …
We study the perturbative renormalizability of chiral two pion exchange in nucleon-nucleon scattering for p- and d-waves within the effective field theory approach. The one pion exchange potential is fully iterated at the leading order in the expansion, a choice generating a consistent and well-defined power counting that we explore in detail. The results show that perturbative chiral two pion exchange reproduces the data up to a center-of-mass momentum of k_cm ~300 MeV at NNLO and that the effective field theory expansion convergences up to k_cm ~ 350 MeV.
Enhancement of omega and antiomega baryon production in Pb+Pb collisions at a c.m. energy of 17 A GeV can be explained by the formation of many small disoriented chiral condensate regions. This explanation implies that neutral and charged kaons as well as pions must exhibit novel isospin fluctuations. We compute the distribution of the fraction of neutral pions and kaons from such regions. We then propose robust statistical observables that can be used to extract the novel fluctuations from background contributions in pion and kaon measurements at RHIC and LHC.
We calculate shifts and width of 1s and 2p states of pions bound to heavy nuclei, using an optical potential with its s-wave interaction part based on chiral symmetry. This potential is constructed systematically in two-loop approximation of chiral perturbation theory. A proper treatment of the explicit energy dependence of this potential in conjunction with gauge invariance turns out to be very important. Results are reported for deeply bound pionic states in Pb and Sn isotopes in comparison with the GSI data
We investigate the symptoms of broken rotational invariance, caused by the use of light front dynamics, for deuterons obtained using one- and two-pion-exchange potentials. A large mass splitting between states with m=0 and m=1 is found for the deuteron obtained from the one-pion-exchange (OPE) potential. The size of the splitting is smaller when the chiral two-pion-exchange (TPE) potential is used. When the TPE potential constructed without chiral symmetry is used, the deuteron becomes unbound. These results arise from significant relativistic effects which are much larger than those of the Wi…
The renormalization, finiteness and off-shellness of short distance power like singular interactions is discussed. We show analytically that the renormalizability of the off-shell scattering amplitude relies completely on the corresponding on-shell amplitude without proliferation of new counterterms. We illustrate the result by complementary calculations both in coordinate as well as in momentum space in the simplest 1S0 channel for chiral np interactions including Two Pion Exchange.
The factorial moments of the pion multiplicity distributions are calculated with HIJING and UrQMD and found to be independent of the pT range included, in contrast to recent simulations with the linear sigma model which leads to large enhancements for pions with transverse kinetic energies below 200 MeV. This supports the use of the ratio of the factorial moments of low and high pT pions as a signal of ``new'' physics at low momentum scales, such as the formation of disoriented chiral condensates.
We study a hybrid chiral model for the nucleon based on the linear sigma model with explicit quarks. We solve the model using a Fock-space configuration consisting of three quarks plus three quarks and a pion as the ground state ansatz in place of the ``hedgehog'' ansatz. We minimize the expectation value of the chiral hamiltonian in this ground state configuration and solve the resulting equations for nucleon quantum numbers. We calculate the canonical set of nucleon observables and compare with previous work.
We show how to renormalize chiral two pion exchange perturbatively if one pion exchange has already been fully iterated at leading order. This particular choice corresponds to the implementation of the counting proposal of Nogga, Timmermans and van Kolck at subleading orders. We illustrate why the perturbative treatment of the two pion exchange contributions is mandatory in order to avoid certain inconsistencies in Weinberg's counting. In addition, renormalizability implies modifications of the power counting which we explore for the particular case of the singlet channel.
We study the perturbative renormalizability of chiral two pion exchange for the singlet and triplet channels within effective field theory, provided that the one pion exchange piece of the interaction has been fully iterated. We determine the number of counterterms/subtractions needed in order to obtain finite results when the cut-off is removed, resulting in three counterterms for the singlet channel and six for the triplet. The results show that chiral two pion exchange can be treated perturbatively up to a center-of-mass momentum of k ~ 200-300 MeV in the singlet channel and k ~ 300-400 in …
We present the first application of the Basis Light-Front Quantization method to a simple chiral model of the nucleon-pion system as a relativistic bound state for the physical proton. The light-front mass-squared matrix of the nucleon-pion system is obtained within a truncated basis. The mass and the corresponding light-front wave function (LFWF) of the proton are computed by numerical diagonalization of the resulting mass-squared matrix. With the boost invariant LFWF, we calculate the probability density distribution of the pion's longitudinal momentum fraction and the Dirac form factor of t…
The pion production by sigma decay and its relation with chiral symmetry restoration in a hot and dense matter are investigated in the framework of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. The decay rate for the process sigma -> 2pion to the lowest order in a 1/N_c expansion is calculated as a function of temperature T and chemical potential mu. The thermal and nonthermal enhancements of pions generated by the decay before and after the freeze-out present only in the crossover region of the chiral symmetry transition. The strongest nonthermal enhancement is located in the vicinity of the endpoint of the …
We extend the renormalization of the NN interaction with Chiral Two Pion Exchange Potential to the calculation of non-central partial wave phase shifts with total angular momentum j<=5 . The short distance singularity structure of the potential as well as the requirement of orthogonality conditions on the wave functions determines exactly the number of undetermined parameters after renormalization.
The nuclear density functional framework, based on chiral dynamics and the symmetry breaking pattern of low-energy QCD, is extended to the description of collective nuclear excitations. Starting from the relativistic point-coupling Lagrangian previously introduced [Nucl. Phys. A770 (2006) 1], the proton-neutron (quasiparticle) random phase approximation is formulated and applied to investigate the role of chiral pion-nucleon dynamics in excitation modes involving spin and isospin degrees of freedom, e.g. isobaric analog states and Gamow-Teller resonances.
Near threshold neutral pion electroproduction on the deuteron is studied in the framework of heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. We include the next-to-leading order corrections to the three-body contributions. We find an improved description of the total and differential cross section data measured at MAMI. We also obtain more precise values for the threshold S-wave multipoles. We discuss in detail the theoretical uncertainties of the calculation.
We calculate the $T$-matrices of elastic pion-nucleon ($πN$) scattering up to fourth order in SU(3) heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. The pertinent low-energy constants are determined by fitting to $πN$ phase shifts below 200 MeV pion laboratory momentum in the physical region. The scattering lengths and scattering volumes are extracted from the chiral amplitudes, and turn out to be in good agreement with those of other approaches and the available experimental values. We also discuss the subthreshold parameters and the related issues. On the basis of the various phase shifts, the thres…
We discuss convergence issues as well as short distance constraints on the deuteron wave functions based on chiral perturbation theory relevant to pion deuteron scattering. Non-analytical terms arise in the multiple scattering series for the pion-deuteron scattering length limiting the accuracy of the calculations. This result resembles similar findings in the structure of the NN interaction. The effects are found not to be numerically large. The iso-scalar $πN $ scattering length from the iso-vector one and the $πd$ scattering length yields values compatible with the experimental number and w…
The energy dependence of chirally expanded pi N isoscalar and isovector amplitudes b_0(E) and b_1(E) respectively, for zero-momentum off shell pions near threshold, is used to impose the minimal substitution requirement E -> E - V_c on the properly constructed pion optical potential within a large-scale fit to 100 pionic-atom data across the periodic table which also include the recently established `deeply bound' pionic atoms of Pb and Sn. This fit cannot be reconciled with the well known free-space values of the pi N threshold amplitudes. In contrast, introducing the empirically known energy…
We discuss partial restoration of chiral symmetry in nuclear medium, which is realized as an effective reduction of the quark condensate in nuclear medium. We derive the in-medium Weinberg-Tomozawa relation. We also give a brief calculation of the in-medium quark condensate based on chiral perturbation theory. We conclude that the density dependence of the quark condensate beyond the linear density comes from the vertex correction of the chiral field insertion and nucleon correlations.
We investigate the pressure of the pion, which should be equal to zero to ensure the stability of the pion, within the framework of the chiral quark model beyond the chiral limit. The pressure of the pion turns out to vanish nontrivially by the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation within the present framework. It implies that the stability of the pion might be deeply rooted in spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. We also discuss physical quantities relevant to the energy-momentum tensor operator.
We study the effect of the chiral phase transition on pion production in hot hadronic matter. The phase of restored chiral symmetry is characterized by the appearance of the scalar $σ$-meson as a chiral partner of the pion as well as by the degeneracy of the vector and axial-vector mesons. We find rapid thermal and chemical equilibration of these degrees of freedom in the symmetric phase. Provided that the chiral transition temperature is not considerably high, the presence of a chirally symmetric phase will result in $\sim 1.6$ times more thermal pions in the final state.
We show that chiral symmetry is responsible for large cancellations in the two-pion exchange nucleon-nucleon interaction, which are similar to those occuring in free pion-nucleon scattering.
A new tool which combines chiral perturbation theory and unitarity in coupled channels is applied with success to the study of the meson-meson interaction, extending the theoretical predictions up to sqrt{s} = 1.2 GeV, hence improving considerably the convergence radius of conventional chiral perturbation theory. The method is applied to obtain the meson-meson phase shifts and inelasticities as well as the isoscalar pion-pion scattering amplitude inside a nuclear medium.
The existence of a Goldstone boson is demonstrated in chiral random matrix theory. After determining the effective coupling and calculating the scalar and pseudoscalar propagators, a random phase approximation summation reveals the massless pion and massive sigma modes expected whenever chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken.
A calculational scheme is developed to evaluate chiral corrections to properties of composite baryons with composite pions. The composite baryons and pions are bound states derived from a microscopic chiral quark model. The model is amenable to standard many-body techniques such as the BCS and RPA formalisms. An effective chiral model involving only hadronic degrees of freedom is derived from the macroscopic quark model by projection onto hadron states. Chiral loops are calculated using the effective hadronic Hamiltonian. A simple microscopic confining interaction is used to illustrate the der…
We investigate the influence of the isospin asymmetry on the phase structure of quark matter near the chiral critical point systematically using a generalized version of Ginzburg-Landau approach. The effect has proven to be so profound that it brings about not only a shift of the critical point but also a rich variety of phases in its neighborhood. In particular, there shows up a phase with spatially varying charged pion condensate which we name the "solitonic pion condensate" in addition to the "chiral defect lattice" where the chiral condensate is partially destructed by periodic placements …
The vector form factor of the pion is calculated in the framework of chiral effective field theory with vector mesons included as dynamical degrees of freedom. To construct an effective field theory with a consistent power counting, the complex-mass scheme is applied.
The phase diagram of dense quark matter with chiral imbalance is considered with the conditions of electric neutrality and $β$-equilibrium. It has been shown recently that chiral imbalance can generate charged pion condensation in dense quark matter, so it was interesting to verify that this phenomenon takes place in realistic physical scenarios such as electrically neutral matter in $β$-equilibrium, because a window of pion condensation at dense quark matter phase diagram (without chiral imbalance) predicted earlier was closed by the consideration of these conditions at the physical current q…
We review the relationship between the pion decay constant $f_π$, the chiral symmetry restoration temperature $T_c$ and the phenomenology of low energy chiral symmetry breaking in view of the recent confirmation of the existence of a sigma meson with a mass of 600-700 MeV.
We extend our previous analysis of the unitarized pion-nucleon scattering amplitude including up to fourth order terms in Heavy Baryon Chiral Perturbation Theory. We pay special attention to the stability of the generated Delta(1232 resonance, the convergence problems and the power counting of the chiral parameters.
The environment generated in the mid-rapidity region of a high-energy nuclear collision endows the pionic degrees of freedom with a time-dependent effective mass. Its specific evolution provides a mechanism for the production of back-to-back charge-conjugate pairs of soft pions which may present an observable signal of the non-equilibrium dynamics of the chiral order parameter.
The effects of chiral imbalance and external magnetic field on pion superfluidity and color superconductivity are investigated in extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio models. We take Schwinger approach to treat the interaction between charged pion condensate and magnetic field at finite isospin density and include simultaneously the chiral imbalance and magnetic field at finite baryon density. For the superfluidity, the chiral imbalance and magnetic field lead to catalysis and inverse catalysis effects, respectively. For the superconductivity, the chiral imbalance enhances the critical baryon density,…
Recent attempts to detect the pion polarizability via analysis of $γγ\rightarrowππ$ measurements are examined. The connection between calculations based on dispersion relations and on chiral perturbation theory is established by matching the low energy chiral amplitude with that given by a full dispersive treatment. Using the values for the polarizability required by chiral symmetry, predicted and experimental cross sections are shown to be in agreement.
We study pion--nucleon scattering with a chiral lagrangian of pions, nucleons, and $Δ$-isobars. The scattering amplitude is evaluated to one-loop $Q^3$ order, where $Q$ is a generic small momentum, using a new approach which is equivalent to heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. We obtain a good fit to the experimental phase shifts for pion center-of-mass kinetic energies up to 100 MeV. A sigma term greater than 45 MeV is favored, but the value is not well determined.
In this work we study the thermodynamic properties of the pion gas starting from the realistic elastic scattering phase-shifts obtained from Chiral Perturbation Theory and using the virial expansion. In particular we study the state equation and the behavior of the quark condensate as a function of the temperature and the density.
We compute the light-cone momentum distributions of pions in the nucleon in chiral effective theory using both pseudovector and pseudoscalar pion-nucleon couplings. For the pseudovector coupling we identify δ-function contributions associated with end-point singularities arising from the pion-nucleon rainbow diagrams, as well as from pion bubble and tadpole diagrams which are not present in the pseudoscalar model. Gauge invariance is demonstrated, to all orders in the pion mass, with the inclusion of Kroll-Ruderman couplings involving operator insertions at the πNN vertex. The results pave the…
In this paper, we consider two-flavor QCD at zero temperature and finite isospin chemical potential ($μ_I$) using a model-independent analysis within chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order. We calculate the effective potential, the chiral condensate and the pion condensate in the pion-condensed phase at both zero and nonzero pionic source. We compare our finite pionic source results for the chiral condensate and the pion condensate with recent (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD results and find that they are in excellent agreement.
Near threshold neutral pion electroproduction on the deuteron is studied in the framework of baryon chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion. We develop the multipole decomposition for pion production off spin-1 particles appropriate for the threshold region. The existing data at photon virtuality k^2 = -0.1 GeV^2 can be described satisfactorily. Furthermore, the prediction for the S-wave multipole E_d at the photon point is in good agreement with the data.
We determine the kinetic coefficients of ultrasoft pions using chiral perturbation theory at finite temperature close to the chiral limit. This is used to compute the axial charge diffusion and damping coefficients in the hydrodynamic effective theory for these pion waves. We show that to provide a leading order answer for these coefficients one needs to explore the dynamics of hard, soft, and ultrasoft pion modes, which are represented microscopically by the appropriate kinetic and hydrodynamic descriptions..
The leading divergences of the generating functional for Green functions of quark currents between one--nucleon states are calculated with heat kernel techniques. The results allow for a chiral invariant renormalization of all two--nucleon Green functions of the pion--nucleon system to $O(p^3)$ in the low--energy expansion.
