Positivity constraints on chiral perturbation theory pion-pion scattering amplitudes

Abstract

We test the positivity property of the chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) pion-pion scattering amplitudes within the Mandelstam triangle. In the one-loop approximation, ${\cal O}(p^4)$, the positivity constrains only the coefficients $b_3$ and $b_4$, namely one obtains that $b_4$ and the linear combination $b_3+3 b_4$ are positive quantities. The two-loops approximation gives inequalities involving all the six arbitrary parameters entering ChPT amplitude, but the corrections to the one-loop approximation results are small. ChPT amplitudes pass unexpectedly well all the positivity tests giving strong support to the idea that ChPT is the good theory of the low energy pion-pion scattering.