Predictions Of Chiral Perturbation Theory Research Articles

First observation and study of the K±→ π0π0μ±ν decay

The NA48/2 experiment at CERN reports the first observation of the K± → π0π0μ±ν decay based on a sample of 2437 candidates with 15% background contamination collected in 2003–2004. The decay branching ratio in the kinematic region of the squared dilepton mass above 0.03 GeV2/c4 is measured to be (0.65 ± 0.03) × 10−6. The extrapolation to the full kinematic space, using a specific model, is found to be (3.45 ± 0.16) × 10−6, in agreement with chiral perturbation theory predictions.

Gravitational p → ∆+ transition form factors in chiral perturbation theory

The gravitational form factors of the transition from the proton to the ∆+ resonance are calculated to leading one-loop order using a manifestly Lorentz-invariant formulation of chiral perturbation theory. We take into account the leading electromagnetic and strong isospin-violating effects. The loop contributions to the transition form factors are found to be free of power-counting violating pieces, which is consistent with the absence of tree-level diagrams at the considered order. In this sense, our results can be regarded as predictions of chiral perturbation theory.

Phase Diagram of Dense Two-Color QCD at Low Temperatures

This review is devoted to the modern understanding of the two-color QCD phase diagram at finite baryon density and low temperatures. First, we consider the theoretical picture of this phase diagram. It is believed that at low baryon density, two-color QCD can be described by chiral perturbation theory (ChPT), which predicts a second-order phase transition with Bose-Einstein condensation of diquarks at μ=mπ/2. At larger baryon chemical potentials, the interactions between baryons become important, and ChPT is not applicable anymore. At sufficiently large baryon chemical potential, the Fermi sphere composed of quarks is formed, and diquarks are condensed on the surface of this sphere. In this region, two-color baryon matter reveals properties similar to those of the Quarkyonic phase. Particular attention in this review is paid to lattice studies of dense two-color QCD phase diagram. In the low-density region, the results of lattice studies are in agreement with ChPT predictions. At sufficiently large baryon densities, lattice studies observe a Fermi sphere composed of quarks and condensation of diquarks on its surface. Thus, available lattice studies support most of the theoretical predictions. Finally, we discuss the status of the deconfinement in cold dense two-color matter, which was observed in lattice simulation with staggered fermions.

Aspects of chiral symmetry in QCD at T=128 MeV

We investigate several aspects of chiral symmetry in QCD at a temperature of $T=128\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$. The study is based on a $24\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}9{6}^{3}$ lattice-QCD ensemble with $\mathrm{O}(a)$-improved Wilson quarks and physical up, down and strange quark masses. The pion quasiparticle turns out to be significantly lighter than the zero-temperature pion mass, even though the corresponding static correlation length is shorter. We perform a quantitative comparison of our findings to predictions of chiral perturbation theory. Among several order parameters for chiral symmetry restoration, we compute the difference of the vector- and axial-vector time-dependent correlators and find it to be reduced by a factor $\ensuremath{\sim}2/3$ as compared to its vacuum counterpart.

A lattice study of ππ scattering at large Nc

We present the first lattice study of pion-pion scattering with varying number of colors, Nc. We use lattice simulations with four degenerate quark flavors, Nf = 4, and Nc = 3 − 6. We focus on two scattering channels that do not involve vacuum diagrams. These correspond to two irreducible representations of the SU(4) flavor group: the fully symmetric one, SS, and the fully antisymmetric one, AA. The former is a repulsive channel equivalent to the isospin-2 channel of SU(2). By contrast, the latter is attractive and only exists for Nf≥ 4. A representative state is left(left.left|{D}_s^{+}{pi}^{+}right.rightrangle -left.left|{D}^{+}{K}^{+}right.rightrangle right)/sqrt{2} . Using Lüscher’s formalism, we extract the near-threshold scattering amplitude and we match our results to Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) at large Nc. For this, we compute the analytical U(Nf) ChPT prediction for two-pion scattering, and use the lattice results to constrain the Nc scaling of the relevant low-energy couplings.

Magnetic moments of the spin- 32 doubly charmed baryons in covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory

Inspired by the discovery of the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ doubly charmed baryon ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Xi}}}_{cc}^{++}$ and the subsequent theoretical studies of its magnetic moments, we study the magnetic moments of its spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ heavy quark spin symmetry counterparts, up to the next-to-leading order in covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory with the extended-on-mass-shell renormalization scheme. With the tree-level contributions fixed by the quark model while the two low energy constants $C$ and $H$ controlling the loop contributions determined in two ways: the quark model (case 1) and lattice QCD simulations together with the quark model (case 2), we study the quark mass dependence of the magnetic moments and compare them with the predictions of the heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. It is shown that the difference is sizable in case 1, but not in case 2 due to the smaller low energy constants $C$ and $H$, similar to the case of spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ doubly charmed baryons. Second, we predict the magnetic moments of the spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ doubly charmed baryons and compare them with those of other approaches. The predicted magnetic moments in case 2 for the spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ doubly charmed baryons are closer to those of other approaches. In addition, the large differences in case 1 and case 2 for the predicted magnetic moments may indicate the inconsistency between the quark model and the lattice QCD simulations, which should be checked by future experimental or more lattice QCD data.

Near-conformal dynamics in a chirally broken system

Composite Higgs models must exhibit very different dynamics from quantum chromodynamics (QCD) regardless whether they describe the Higgs boson as a dilatonlike state or a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson. Large separation of scales and large anomalous dimensions are frequently desired by phenomenological models. Mass-split systems are well-suited for composite Higgs models because they are governed by a conformal fixed point in the ultraviolet but are chirally broken in the infrared. In this work we use lattice field theory calculations with domain wall fermions to investigate a system with four light and six heavy flavors. We demonstrate how a nearby conformal fixed point affects the properties of the four light flavors that exhibit chiral symmetry breaking in the infrared. Specifically we describe hyperscaling of dimensionful physical quantities and determine the corresponding anomalous mass dimension. We obtain $y_m=1+\gamma^*= 1.47(5)$ suggesting that $N_f=10$ lies inside the conformal window. Comparing the low energy spectrum to predictions of dilaton chiral perturbation theory, we observe excellent agreement which supports the expectation that the 4+6 mass-split system exhibits near-conformal dynamics with a relatively light $0^{++}$ isosinglet scalar.

Nucleon axial structure from lattice QCD

We present a new analysis method that allows one to understand and model excited state contributions in observables that are dominated by a pion pole. We apply this method to extract axial and (induced) pseudoscalar nucleon isovector form factors, which satisfy the constraints due to the partial conservation of the axial current up to expected discretization effects. Effective field theory predicts that the leading contribution to the (induced) pseudoscalar form factor originates from an exchange of a virtual pion, and thus exhibits pion pole dominance. Using our new method, we can recover this behavior directly from lattice data. The numerical analysis is based on a large set of ensembles generated by the CLS effort, including physical pion masses, large volumes (with up to 963 × 192 sites and Lmπ = 6.4), and lattice spacings down to 0.039 fm, which allows us to take all the relevant limits. We find that some observables are much more sensitive to the choice of parametrization of the form factors than others. On the one hand, the z-expansion leads to significantly smaller values for the axial dipole mass than the dipole ansatz ( {M}_A^{z-mathit{exp}} = 1.02(10) GeV versus {M}_A^{mathrm{dipole}} = 1.31(8) GeV). On the other hand, we find that the result for the induced pseudoscalar coupling at the muon capture point is almost independent of the choice of parametrization ( {g}_P^{ast z-mathit{exp}} = 8.68(45) and {g}_P^{ast mathrm{dipole}} = 8.30(24)), and is in good agreement with both, chiral perturbation theory predictions and experimental measurement via ordinary muon capture. We also determine the axial coupling constant gA.

Nucleon\u2019s energy\u2013momentum tensor form factors in light-cone QCD

We use the energy–momentum tensor (EMT) current to compute the EMT form factors of the nucleon in the framework of the light cone QCD sum rule formalism. In the calculations, we employ the most general form of the nucleon’s interpolating field and use the distribution amplitudes (DAs) of the nucleon with two sets of the numerical values of the main input parameters entering the expressions of the DAs. The directly obtained results from the sum rules for the form factors are reliable at Q^2ge 1 GeV^2 : to extrapolate the results to include the zero momentum transfer squared with the aim of estimation of the related static physical quantities, we use some fit functions for the form factors. The numerical computations show that the energy–momentum tensor form factors of the nucleon can be well fitted to the multipole fit form. We compare the results obtained for the form factors at Q^2=0 with the existing theoretical predictions as well as experimental data on the gravitational form factor d_1^q(0). For the form factors M_2^q (0) and J^q(0) a consistency among the theoretical predictions is seen within the errors: our results are nicely consistent with the Lattice QCD and chiral perturbation theory predictions. However, there are large discrepancies among the theoretical predictions on d_1^q(0). Nevertheless, our prediction is in accord with the JLab data as well as with the results of the Lattice QCD, chiral perturbation theory and KM15-fit. Our fit functions well define most of the JLab data in the interval Q^2in [0,0.4] GeV^2 , while the Lattice results suffer from large uncertainties in this region. As a by-product, some mechanical properties of the nucleon like the pressure and energy density at the center of nucleon as well as its mechanical radius are also calculated and their results are compared with other existing theoretical predictions.

Two-colour QCD phases and the topology at low temperature and high density

We delineate equilibrium phase structure and topological charge distribution of dense two-colour QCD at low temperature by using a lattice simulation with two-flavour Wilson fermions that has a chemical potential μ and a diquark source j incorporated. We systematically measure the diquark condensate, the Polyakov loop, the quark number density and the chiral condensate with improved accuracy and j → 0 extrapolation over earlier publications; the known qualitative features of the low temperature phase diagram, which is composed of the hadronic, Bose-Einstein condensed (BEC) and BCS phases, are reproduced. In addition, we newly find that around the boundary between the hadronic and BEC phases, nonzero quark number density occurs even in the hadronic phase in contrast to the prediction of the chiral perturbation theory (ChPT), while the diquark condensate approaches zero in a manner that is consistent with the ChPT prediction. At the highest μ, which is of order the inverse of the lattice spacing, all the above observables change drastically, which implies a lattice artifact. Finally, at temperature of order 0.45Tc, where Tc is the chiral transition temperature at zero chemical potential, the topological susceptibility is calculated from a gradient-flow method and found to be almost constant for all the values of μ ranging from the hadronic to BCS phase. This is a contrast to the case of 0.89Tc in which the topological susceptibility becomes small as the hadronic phase changes into the quark-gluon plasma phase.

Nπ -state contamination in lattice calculations of the nucleon pseudoscalar form factor

The nucleon-pion-state contribution in the QCD 3-point function of the pseudoscalar density is calculated to leading order in chiral perturbation theory. It predicts a nucleon-pion-state contamination in lattice estimates for the pseudoscalar form factor $G_{\rm P}(Q^2)$ determined with the plateau method. Depending on the momentum transfer $Q^2$ the contamination varies between -20% and +50% for a source-sink separation of 2 fm. The nucleon-pion-state contamination also causes violations in the generalized Goldberger-Treiman relation among the pseudoscalar and the axial nucleon form factors, the dominant source being the nucleon-pion-state contamination in the induced pseudoscalar form factor $\tilde{G}_{\rm P}(Q^2)$. Comparing the chiral perturbation theory predictions with lattice results of the PACS collaboration we find reasonable agreement even for source-sink separations as small as 1.3 fm.

Compton scattering off pions and electromagnetic polarizabilities

The electric [Formula: see text] and magnetic [Formula: see text] Compton polarizabilities of both the charged and the neutral pion are of fundamental interest in the low-energy sector of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Pion polarizabilities affect the shape of the [Formula: see text] Compton scattering angular distribution at back scattering angles and [Formula: see text] absolute cross sections. Theory derivations are given for the [Formula: see text] Compton scattering differential cross section, dispersion relations, and sum rules in terms of the polarizabilities. We review experimental charged and neutral polarizability studies and theoretical predictions. The [Formula: see text] polarizabilities were deduced from DESY Crystal Ball [Formula: see text] data, but with large uncertainties. The charged pion polarizabilities were deduced most recently from (1) radiative pion Primakoff scattering [Formula: see text] at CERN COMPASS, (2) two-photon pion pair production [Formula: see text] at SLAC Mark II, and (3) radiative pion photoproduction [Formula: see text] from the proton at MAMI in Mainz. A stringent test of chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) is possible based on comparisons of precision experimental charged pion polarizabilities with ChPT predictions. Only the CERN COMPASS charged pion polarizability measurement has acceptably small uncertainties. Its value [Formula: see text] agrees well with the two-loop ChPT prediction [Formula: see text], strengthening the identification of the pion with the Goldstone boson of chiral symmetry breaking in QCD.

Sum rules across the unpolarized Compton processes involving generalized polarizabilities and moments of nucleon structure functions

We derive two new sum rules for the unpolarized doubly virtual Compton scattering process on a nucleon, which establish novel low-$Q^2$ relations involving the nucleon's generalized polarizabilities and moments of the nucleon's unpolarized structure functions $F_1(x,Q^2)$ and $F_2(x,Q^2)$. These relations facilitate the determination of some structure constants which can only be accessed in off-forward doubly virtual Compton scattering, not experimentally accessible at present. We perform an empirical determination for the proton and compare our results with a next-to-leading-order chiral perturbation theory prediction. We also show how these relations may be useful for a model-independent determination of the low-$Q^2$ subtraction function in the Compton amplitude, which enters the two-photon-exchange contribution to the Lamb shift of (muonic) hydrogen. An explicit calculation of the $\Delta(1232)$-resonance contribution to the muonic-hydrogen $2P-2S$ Lamb shift yields $-1 \pm 1$ $\mathsf\mu$eV, confirming the previously conjectured smallness of this effect.

Topological susceptibility from twisted mass fermions using spectral projectors and the gradient flow

We compare lattice QCD determinations of topological susceptibility using a gluonic definition from the gradient flow and a fermionic definition from the spectral projector method. We use ensembles with dynamical light, strange and charm flavors of maximally twisted mass fermions. For both definitions of the susceptibility we employ ensembles at three values of the lattice spacing and several quark masses at each spacing. The data are fitted to chiral perturbation theory predictions with a discretization term to determine the continuum chiral condensate in the massless limit and estimate the overall discretization errors. We find that both approaches lead to compatible results in the continuum limit, but the gluonic ones are much more affected by cut-off effects. This finally yields a much smaller total error in the spectral projector results. We show that there exists, in principle, a value of the spectral cutoff which would completely eliminate discretization effects in the topological susceptibility.

Topological susceptibility of QCD with dynamical Möbius domain-wall fermions

We compute the topological susceptibility $\chi_t$ of lattice QCD with $2+1$ dynamical quark flavors described by the M\"obius domain wall fermion. Violation of chiral symmetry as measured by the residual mass is kept at $\sim$1 MeV or smaller. We measure the fluctuation of the topological charge density in a `slab' sub-volume of the simulated lattice using the method proposed by Bietenholz {\it et al.} The quark mass dependence of $\chi_t$ is consistent with the prediction of chiral perturbation theory, from which the chiral condensate is extracted as $\Sigma^{\overline{\rm MS}} (\mbox{2GeV}) = [274(13)(29)\mbox{MeV}]^3$, where the first error is statistical and the second one is systematic. Combining the results for the pion mass $M_\pi$ and decay constant $F_\pi$, we obtain $\chi_t = 0.229(03)(13)M_\pi^2F_\pi^2$ at the physical point.

Multi-hadron-state contamination in nucleon observables from chiral perturbation theory

Multi-particle states with additional pions are expected to be a non-negligible source of the excited-state contamination in lattice simulations at the physical point. It is shown that baryon chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) can be employed to calculate the contamination due to two-particle nucleon-pion states in various nucleon observables. Results to leading order are presented for the nucleon axial, tensor and scalar charge and three Mellin moments of parton distribution functions: the average quark momentum fraction, the helicity and the transversity moment. Taking into account experimental and phenomenological results for the charges and moments the impact of the nucleon-pionstates on lattice estimates for these observables can be estimated. The nucleon-pion-state contribution leads to an overestimation of all charges and moments obtained with the plateau method. The overestimation is at the 5-10% level for source-sink separations of about 2 fm. Existing lattice data is not in conflict with the ChPT predictions, but the comparison suggests that significantly larger source-sink separations are needed to compute the charges and moments with few-percent precision.

On the effect of excited states in lattice calculations of the nucleon axial charge

Excited-state contamination is one of the dominant uncertainties in lattice calculations of the nucleon axial-charge, gA. Recently published results in leading-order chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) predict the excited-state contamination to be independent of the nucleon interpolator and positive [1–3]. We reproduce these results using ChPT in infinite volume along with the Lellouch–Lüscher formalism to relate finite- and infinite-volume matrix elements. We then go beyond ChPT by using the experimentally determined Nπ scattering phase to estimate the correction due to the final-state interactions, both on the discrete energy levels and on the Lellouch–Lüscher factors. We find that, while individual Lellouch–Lüscher factors differ significantly, the overall effect on the excited-state contamination is small. However, empirical results from numerical lattice calculations show negative contamination (downward curvature), indicating that present-day calculations are not in the regime where the leading-order ChPT predictions apply. We show that, under plausible assumptions, one can reproduce the behavior of lattice correlators by postulating a sign change in the infinite-volume N→Nπ axial-vector transition amplitude roughly in the region of the Roper resonance. Improved data, either from experiment or from a lattice QCD calculation, would allow for a direct test of this postulate.

Evaluation of the forward Compton scattering off protons. II. Spin-dependent amplitude and observables

The forward Compton scattering off the proton is determined by substituting the empirical total photoabsorption cross sections into dispersive sum rules. In addition to the spin-independent amplitude evaluated previously [Phys. Rev. D 92, 074031 (2015)], we obtain the spin-dependent amplitude over a broad energy range. The two amplitudes contain all the information about this process, and we, hence, can reconstruct the nonvanishing observables of the proton Compton scattering in the forward kinematics. The results are compared with predictions of chiral perturbation theory where available. The low-energy expansion of the spin-dependent Compton scattering amplitude yields the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule and relations for the forward spin polarizabilities (FSPs) of the proton. Our evaluation provides an empirical verification of the GDH sum rule for the proton, and yields empirical values of the proton FSPs. For the GDH integral, we obtain $204.5(21.4)$ $\mu$b, in agreement with the sum rule prediction: $204.784481(4)$ $\mu$b. For the FSPs, we obtain: $\gamma_0=-92.9(10.5) \times 10^{-6}$ fm$^4$, and $\bar{\gamma_0}=48.4(8.2) \times 10^{-6}$ fm$^6$, improving on the accuracy of previous evaluations.

K± → π±γγ Studies at NA48/2 and NA62-RK Experiments at CERN

Final results from an analysis of about 400K±→π±γγ rare decay candidates collected by the NA48/2 and NA62-RK experiments at CERN during low intensity runs with minimum bias trigger configurations are presented. The results include a model-independent decay rate measurement and fits to Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) description. The data support the ChPT prediction for a cusp in the di-photon invariant mass spectrum at the two pion threshold.

Electromagnetic Polarizabilities of Mesons

The Chiral Perturbation Theory (CHPT) has been very successful in describing low-energy hadronic properties in the non-perturbative regime of Quantum Chromodynamics. The results of ChPT, many of which are currently under active experimental investigation, provide stringent predictions of many fundamental properties of hadrons, including quantities such as electromagnetic polarizabilities. Yet, even for the simplest hadronic system, a pion, we still have a broad spectrum of polarizability measurements (MARK II, VENUS, ALEPH, TPC/2g, CELLO, Belle, Crystal Ball). The meson polarizability can be accessed through Compton scattering, so we can measure it through Primakoff reaction. This paper will provide an analysis of the CHPT predictions of the SU(3) meson electromagnetic polarizabilities and outline their relationship to the Primakoff cross section at the kinematics relevant to the planned JLab experiments.