Pion Loops in Chiral Perturbation Theory and Light-Front Dynamics

Abstract

From the approximate chiral symmetry of QCD, it is known that the pion loops in chiral perturbation theory play a vital role in understanding the nucleon’s long-range structure. We demonstrate the equivalence of the light-front, equal-time and covariant formulations for the interactions of nucleons with pions in chiral perturbation theory. In particular, we discuss the self-energy Σ of a nucleon dressed by pion loops with the pseudovector πNN coupling. It is shown that the leading nonanalytic behavior of Σ is equivalent whichever formulations are used for the derivation. We also discuss the relation between the mass shift and the wavefunction renormalization as well as the difference between the pseudovector and pseudoscalar theories.