Chiral properties of baryon fields with flavor SU(3) symmetry

Abstract

We investigate chiral properties of local (nonderivative) fields of baryons consisting of three quarks with flavor SU(3) symmetry. We construct explicitly independent local three-quark fields belonging to definite Lorentz and flavor representations. Chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken and therefore the baryon fields can have different chiral representations. Because of the color antisymmetric and spatially symmetric structure of the local three-quark fields, the allowed chiral representations are strongly correlated with the Lorentz group representations. We discuss some implications of the allowed chiral symmetry representations on physical quantities such as the axial coupling constants.