Chiral Symmetry Breaking and the Masses of Hadrons: A Review

Abstract

The masses of hadrons in the vacuum, where the chiral symmetry is restored, and in the medium are generally different even when the changes in the order parameters of chiral symmetry are the same. Here, we first discuss the relation between the hadron masses and the chiral symmetry breaking in approaches based on operator product expansion (OPE). We then discuss what additional changes occur to the hadron masses when going from the chiral symmetry restored vacuum to nuclear medium and/or finite temperature. The work will highlight how we can identify the effects of chiral symmetry restoration from experimental observations.