Pion Field Research Articles

Spin-orbit correlations in the nucleon in the large- Nc limit

We study the twist-3 spin-orbit correlations of quarks described by the nucleon matrix elements of the parity-odd rank-2 tensor QCD operator (the parity-odd partner of the QCD energy-momentum tensor). Our treatment is based on the effective dynamics emerging from the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry and the mean-field picture of the nucleon in the large-Nc limit. The twist-3 QCD operators are converted to effective operators, in which the QCD interactions are replaced by spin-flavor-dependent chiral interactions of the quarks with the pion field. We compute the nucleon matrix elements of the twist-3 effective operators and discuss the role of the chiral interactions in the spin-orbit correlations. We derive the first-quantized representation in the mean-field picture and develop a quantum-mechanical interpretation. The chiral interactions give rise to new spin-orbit couplings and qualitatively change the correlations compared to the quark model picture. We also derive the twist-3 matrix elements in the topological soliton picture where the quarks are integrated out (skyrmion). The methods used here can be extended to other QCD operators describing higher-twist nucleon structure and generalized parton distributions. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Chiral perturbation theory: reflections on effective theories of the standard model

The pseudoscalar particles pions, kaons and the $\eta$-particle are considerably lighter than the other hadrons such as protons or neutrons. Their lightness was understood as a consequence of approximate chiral symmetry breaking. This led to current algebra, a way to express the relations imposed by the symmetry breaking. It was realized by Weinberg that because of their low mass, it is possible to formulate a purely pionic (effective) field theory at experimental energies, which carries all information on the (non-perturbative) dynamics, symmetries, and their spontaneous breaking of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and allows for systematic calculations of observables. In this review, we trace these developments and present recent activities in this field. We make the connection to other effective theories, more generally introduced by Wilson, as approximate field theories at low energies. Indeed, principles and paradigms introduced first for pions have become ubiquitous in particle physics and the standard model. Lastly, we turn to the latest development where the present (fundamental) standard model itself is considered as an effective field theory of a - yet to be formulated - even more fundamental theory. We also discuss important techniques that were developed in order to turn chiral perturbation theory into a predictive framework and briefly review some connections between lattice QCD and chiral perturbation theory (ChPT).

Chiral anomaly induces superconducting baryon crystal

It was previously shown within chiral perturbation theory that the ground state of QCD in a sufficiently large magnetic field and at nonvanishing, but not too large, baryon chemical potential is a so-called chiral soliton lattice. The crucial ingredient of this observation was the chiral anomaly in the form of a Wess-Zumino-Witten term, which couples the baryon chemical potential to the magnetic field and the gradient of the neutral pion field. It was also shown that the chiral soliton lattice becomes unstable towards charged pion condensation at larger magnetic fields. We point out that this instability bears a striking resemblance to the second critical magnetic field of a type-II superconductor, however with the superconducting phase appearing upon increasing the magnetic field. The resulting phase has a periodically varying charged pion condensate that coexists with a neutral pion supercurrent. We construct this phase analytically in the chiral limit and show that it is energetically preferred. Just like an ordinary type-II superconductor, it exhibits a hexagonal array of magnetic flux tubes, and, due to the chiral anomaly, a spatially oscillating baryon number of the same crystalline structure.

Effect of the pion field on the distributions of pressure and shear in the proton

In light of recent experimental progress in determining the pressure and shear distributions in the proton, these quantities are calculated in a model with confined quarks supplemented by the pion field required by chiral symmetry. The incorporation of the pion contributions is shown to account for the long-range distributions, in general agreement with the experimentally extracted quark contributions. The results of the model are also compared with lattice QCD results at unphysically large quark mass.

Inhomogeneous pion condensed phase hosting topologically stable baryons

We discuss the inhomogeneous pion condensed phase within the framework of chiral perturbation theory. We show how the general expression of the condensate can be obtained solving three coupled differential equations, expressing how the pion fields are modulated in space. Upon using some simplifying assumptions, we determine an analytic solution in (3+1)-dimensions. The obtained inhomogeneous condensate is characterized by a non-vanishing topological charge, which can be identified with the baryonic number. In this way, we obtain an inhomogeneous system of pions hosting an arbitrary number of baryons at fixed position in space.

On pion mass and decay constant from theory

We calculate the pion mass from Goldstone modes in the Higgs mechanism related to the neutron decay. The Goldstone pion modes acquire mass by a vacuum misalignment of the Higgs field. The size of the misalignment is controlled by the ratio between the electronic and the nucleonic energy scales. The nucleonic energy scale is involved in the neutron to proton transformation and the electronic scale is involved in the related creation of the electronic state in the course of the electroweak neutron decay. The respective scales influence the mapping of the intrinsic configuration spaces used in our description. The configuration spaces are the Lie groups U(3) for the nucleonic sector and U(2) for the electronic sector. These spaces are both compact and lead to periodic potentials in the Hamiltonians in coordinate space. The periodicity and strengths of these potentials control the vacuum misalignment and lead to a pion mass of 135.2(1.5) MeV with an uncertainty mainly from the fine structure coupling at pionic energies. The pion decay constant 92 MeV results from comparing the fourth-order self-coupling in an effective pion field theory with the corresponding fourth-order term in the Higgs potential. We suggest analogies with the Goldberger-Treiman relation.

Pion crystals hosting topologically stable baryons

We construct analytic (3+1)-dimensional inhomogeneous and topologically non-trivial pion systems using chiral perturbation theory. We discuss the effect of isospin asymmetry with vanishing electromagnetic interactions as well as some particular configurations with non-vanishing electromagnetic interactions. The inhomogeneous configurations of the pion fields are characterized by a non-vanishing topological charge that can be identified with baryons surrounded by a cloud of pions. This system supports a topologically protected persistent superflow. When the electromagnetic field is turned on the superflow corresponds to an electromagnetic supercurrent.

The $$\varvec{\rho }{\text {-}}meson$$ in an effective description of low-energy electro-weak transitions of hadrons

Starting with the general principles of global and local symmetries, an effective lagrangian is developed to describe consistently low-energy electro-weak transitions in the system that incorporates nucleons, pions, $$\rho {\text {-}}mesons$$ , photons and $$W^{\pm }-, Z^0-$$ bosons. As the effective lagrangian is essentially nonlinear in the pion field, we sum up properly emerged infinite series in the pion field so that no divergences occur in the course of calculations. The developed approach proves to be relevant to consider low-energy electro-weak interactions among $$\rho {\text {-}}mesons$$ , nucleons, and pions.

Effects of bulk symmetry breaking on AdS/QCD predictions

We put forward a new bottom-up AdS/QCD holographic model bearing a distinct treatment of the pion fields. We argue that a standard approach to the pion description is neither transparent nor totally satisfactory. In the paper we provide a new one based on a broadened realization of some holographic principles. The reasoning and the effect of these modifications are explained in detail. The resulting model has a different set of parameters than the standard AdS/QCD case. We use them to calculate an extensive list of QCD quantities and find a rather good agreement with the experimental data.

Rotation induced charged pion condensation in a strong magnetic field: A Nambu–Jona-Lasino model study

We investigate the possibility of charged pion condensation in the presence of parallel rotation and magnetic field within the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with quarks as the fundamental degrees of freedom. Previous study based on non-interacting Klein-Gordon theory for pions showed that the charged pions will undergo Bose-Einstein condensation under this circumstance [Y. Liu and I. Zahed, Phys. Rev. Lett. ${\bf 120}$, 032001 (2018)]. In this work, we take into account the internal quark structures of charged pions self-consistently through quark polarization loops in an interacting theory, i.e., the Nambu--Jona-Lasino model. The stability of the system is explored against the formation of a nonzero expectation value of the composite charged pion field $\bar{u}i\gamma_5d$. We find that two competing effects are induced by the rotation: the isospin enhancement which favors charged pion condensation and the spin breaking which disfavors the condensation. For a strong magnetic field ($\sqrt{eB}\sim1{\rm GeV}$) and system size of a few fermi, the isospin enhancement effect is stronger than the spin breaking one, and the charged pion condensation becomes energetically favored beyond a critical angular velocity of a few MeV.

Topology change and nuclear symmetry energy in compact-star matter

We show that the cusp-like structure in the nuclear symmetry energy, a consequence of topology change, visible in the skyrmion lattice description of dense matter is extremely robust. It is present in the Skyrme model -- with the pion field only -- and is left unscathed by massive degrees of freedom such as the vector mesons $\rho$ and $\omega$ and also the scalar meson introduced as a dilaton. It leads to the emergence of parity-doubling at the skyrmion-half-skyrmion transition and impacts on the nuclear symmetry energy "wilderness" landscape, weeding out roughly half of the wilderness. It is shown that a pseudo-conformal sound velocity arises at a precocious density at which the cusp is formed. It is suggested that the topology change, being robust, could impact on the tidal deformability observed in gravity waves

Pion constituent quark couplings strong form factors: A dynamical approach

Form factors for pions interactions with constituent quarks are investigated as the leading effective couplings obtained from a one loop background field method applied to a global color model. Two pion field definitions are considered and the resulting eleven form factors are expressed in terms of components of the quark and gluon propagators that compose only two momentum dependent functions. A momentum dependent Goldberger Treiman relation is also obtained as one of the ratios between the form factors. The resulting form factors with pion momenta up to 1.5 GeV are exhibited for different quark effective masses and two different non-perturbative gluon propagators and they present similar behavior to fittings of experimental data from nucleons form factors. The corresponding pseudoscalar averaged quadratic radii (a.q.r.) and correction to the axial a.q.r. are presented as functions of the sea quark effective mass, being equal respectively to the scalar and vector ones at the present level of calculation.

Rolling Skyrmions and the nuclear spin-orbit force

We compute the nuclear spin-orbit coupling from the Skyrme model. Previous attempts to do this were based on the product ansatz, and as such were limited to a system of two well-separated nuclei. Our calculation utilises a new method, and is applicable to the phenomenologically important situation of a single nucleon orbiting a large nucleus. We find that, to second order in perturbation theory, the coefficient of the spin-orbit coupling induced by pion field interactions has the wrong sign, but as the strength of the pion-nucleon interactions increases the correct sign is recovered non-perturbatively.

The effective description of non-strange hadrons low-energy electro-weak transitions

Starting with the general principles of global and local symmetries, the effective pion–nucleon lagrangian, essentially nonlinear in the pion field, to describe the non-strange hadrons low-energy electro-weak transitions is developed. We encounter no divergence summarizing properly all the infinite power series in a pion field which occur in the course of treatment. Our consistent approach proves to be relevant in considering the parity violation in pion–nucleon interactions.

Gluonic Distribution in the Constituent Quark and Nucleon Induced by the Instantons

Instanton effects can give large contribution to strong interacting processes, especially at the energy scale where perturbative QCD is no longer valid. However instanton contribution to the gluon contribution in constituent quark and nucleon has never been calculated before. Based on both the constituent quark picture and the instanton model for QCD vacuum, we calculate the unpolarized and polarized gluon distributions in the constituent quark and in the nucleon for the first time. We find that the pion field plays an important role in producing both the unpolarized and the polarized gluon distributions.

Low energy constituent quark and pion effective couplings in a weak external magnetic field

An effective model with pions and constituent quarks in the presence of a weak external background electromagnetic field is derived by starting from a dressed one gluon exchange quark-quark interaction.By applying the auxiliary field and background field methods, the structureless pion limit is considered to extract effective pion and constituent quark couplings in the presence of a weak magnetic field. The leading terms of a large quark and gluon masses expansion are obtained by resolving effective coupling constants which turn out to depend on a weak magnetic field. Two pion field definitions are considered for that. Several relations between the effective coupling constants and parameters can be derived exactly or in the limit of very large quark mass at zero and weak constant magnetic field. Among these ratios, the Gell Mann Oakes Renner and the quark level Goldberger Treiman relations are obtained. In addition to that, in the pion sector, the leading terms of Chiral Perturbation Theory coupled to the electromagnetic field is recovered. Some numerical estimates are provided for the effective coupling constants and parameters.

Low-energy limit of the extended Linear Sigma Model

The extended Linear Sigma Model is an effective hadronic model based on the linear realization of chiral symmetry $ SU(N_{f})_{L} \times SU(N_{f})_{R}$ , with (pseudo)scalar and (axial-)vector mesons as degrees of freedom. In this paper, we study the low-energy limit of the extended Linear Sigma Model (eLSM) for $ N_{f}=2$ flavors by integrating out all fields except for the pions, the (pseudo-)Nambu-Goldstone bosons of chiral symmetry breaking. The resulting low-energy effective action is identical to Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) after choosing a representative for the coset space generated by chiral symmetry breaking and expanding it in powers of (derivatives of) the pion fields. The tree-level values of the coupling constants of the effective low-energy action agree remarkably well with those of ChPT.

Untwisting twisted NJL2 kinks by a bare fermion mass

Twisted kinks in the massless NJL$_2$ model interpolate between two distinct vacua on the chiral circle. If one approaches the chiral limit from finite bare fermion masses $m_0$, the vacuum is unique and twist cannot exist. This issue is studied analytically in the non-relativistic limit, using a no-sea effective theory. We conclude that even in the massless limit, the interpretation of the twisted kink has to be revised. One has to attribute the fermion number of the valence state to the twisted kink. Fermion density is spread out over the whole space due to the massless pion field. The result can be pictured as a composite of a twisted kink (carrying energy, but no fermion number) and a partial winding of the chiral spiral (carrying fermion number, but no energy). This solves at the same time the puzzle of missing baryons with fermion number $N_f<N$ in the massless NJL$_2$ model.

Hairy AdS black holes with a toroidal horizon in 4D Einstein-nonlinear σ-model system

An exact hairy asymptotically locally AdS black hole solution with a flat horizon in the Einstein-nonlinear sigma model system in (3+1) dimensions is constructed. The ansatz for the nonlinear SU(2) field is regular everywhere and depends explicitly on Killing coordinates, but in such a way that its energy–momentum tensor is compatible with a metric with Killing fields. The solution is characterized by a discrete parameter which has neither topological nor Noether charge associated with it and therefore represents a hair. A U(1) gauge field interacting with Einstein gravity can also be included. The thermodynamics is analyzed. Interestingly, the hairy black hole is always thermodynamically favoured with respect to the corresponding black hole with vanishing Pionic field.

The nonlocal chiral quark model and the muon g – 2 problem

In the first part of the review we discuss the effective nonlocal approach in the quantum field theory. It concerns primary the historical retrospective of this approach, and than we concentrate on the interaction of matter particles (fermions and bosons) with the (abelian and nonabelian) gauge fields. In the second part of the review we consider the hadronic corrections (vacuum polarization) to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon g - 2 factor discussed within the SUf(2) nonlocal chiral quark model. This is considered in the leading and, partially, in the next-to-leading orders (the effect of the fermion propagator dressing due to pion field) of expansion in small parameter 1/Nc (Nc is the number of colors in QCD).