Pseudoscalar Mesons Research Articles

Ground state pseudoscalar mesons on the light front: From the light to heavy sector

We extract the leading Fock-state light front wave functions (LF-LFWFs) of both the light and heavy pseudoscalar mesons, e.g., the pion (at masses of 130 MeV, 310 MeV and 690 MeV), $\eta_c$ and $\eta_b$, from their covariant Bethe-Salpeter wave functions within the rainbow-ladder (RL) truncation. It is shown that the LF-LFWFs get narrower in $x$ (the longitudinal momentum fraction of meson carried by the quark) with the increasing current quark mass, and the leading twist parton distribution amplitudes (PDAs) inherit this feature. Meanwhile, we find in the pion the LF-LFWFs only contribute around 30\% to the total Fock-state normalization, indicating the presence of significant higher Fock-states within. In contrast, in the $\eta_c$ and $\eta_b$ the LF-LFWFs contribute more than $90$\%, suggesting the $Q\bar{Q}$ valence Fock-state truncation as a good approximation for heavy mesons. We thus study the 3-dimensional parton distributions of the $\eta_c$ and $\eta_b$ with the unpolarized generalized parton distribution function (GPD) and the transverse momentum dependent parton distribution function (TMD). Through the gravitational form factors in connection with the GPD, the mass radii of the $\eta_c$ and $\eta_b$ in the light-cone frame are determined to be $r_{E,{\rm LC}}^{\eta_c} =0.150$ fm and $r_{E,{\rm LC}}^{\eta_b} =0.089$ fm respectively.

Ωcc resonances with negative parity in the chiral constituent quark model

Spectrum of the low-lying $\Omega_{cc}$ resonances with negative parity, which are assumed to be dominated by $sccq\bar{q}$ pentaquark components, is investigated using the chiral constituent quark model. Energies of the $\Omega_{cc}$ resonances are obtained by considering the hyperfine interaction between quarks by exchanging Goldstone boson. Possible $sccq\bar{q}$ configurations with spin-parity $1/2^{-}$, $3/2^{-}$ and $5/2^{-}$ are taken into account. Numerical results show that the lowest $\Omega_{cc}$ resonances with negative parity may lie at $4050 \pm 100$ MeV. In addition, the transitions of the $\Omega_{cc}$ resonance to a pseudoscalar meson and a ground baryon state are also investigated within the chiral Lagrangian approach. We expect that these $\Omega_{cc}$ resonances could be observed in the $\bar{D}\Xi_{c}$ channel by future experiments.

Time-reversal asymmetries and angular distributions in \u039bb \u2192 \u039bV

We study the spin correlations to probe time-reversal (T) asymmetries in the decays of Λb→ ΛV (V = ϕ, ρ0, ω, K∗0). The eigenstates of the T-odd operators are obtained along with definite angular momenta. We obtain the T-odd spin correlations from the complex phases among the helicity amplitudes. We give the angular distributions of Λb→ Λ(→ pπ−)V (→ PP′) and show the corresponding spin correlations, where P(′) are the pseudoscalar mesons. Due to the helicity conservation of the s quark in Λ, we deduce that the polarization asymmetries of Λ are close to −1. Since the decay of Λb→ Λϕ in the standard model (SM) is dictated by the single weak phase from the product of CKM elements, {V}_{tb}{V}_{ts}^{ast } , the true T and CP asymmetries are suppressed, providing a clean background to test the SM and search for new physics. In the factorization approach, as the helicity amplitudes in the SM share the same complex phase, T-violating effects are absent. Nonetheless, the experimental branching ratio of Br(Λb→ Λϕ) = (5.18 ± 1.29) × 10−6 suggests that the nonfactorizable effects or some new physics play an important role. By parametrizing the nonfactorizable contributions with the effective color number, we calculate the branching ratios and direct CP asymmetries. We also explore the possible T-violating effects from new physics.

New graphical criterion for the selection of complete sets of polarization observables and its application to single-meson photoproduction as well as electroproduction

This paper combines the graph-theoretical ideas behind Moravcsik's theorem with a completely analytic derivation of discrete phase ambiguities, recently published by Nakayama. The result is a new graphical procedure for the derivation of certain types of complete sets of observables for an amplitude-extraction problem with $N$ helicity amplitudes. The procedure is applied to pseudoscalar meson photoproduction ($N=4$ amplitudes) and electroproduction ($N=6$ amplitudes), yielding complete sets with minimal length of $2N$ observables. For the case of electroproduction, this is the first time an extensive list of minimal complete sets is published. Furthermore, the generalization of the proposed procedure to processes with a larger number of amplitudes, i.e., $N>6$ amplitudes, is sketched. The generalized procedure is outlined for the next more complicated example of two-meson photoproduction ($N=8$ amplitudes).

Radial excited heavy mesons * *Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (11947108, 12005060)

In this study, the first radial excited heavy pseudoscalar and vector mesons ( , , , , , and ) are investigated using the Dyson-Schwinger equation and Bethe-Salpeter equation approach. It is shown that the effective interactions of the radial excited states are harder than those of the ground states. With the interaction well determined by fitting the masses and leptonic decay constants of and , the first radial excited heavy mesons could be quantitatively described in the rainbow ladder approximation. The masses and leptonic decay constants of , , , and are predicted.

Parton physics from a heavy-quark operator product expansion: Formalism and Wilson coefficients

Parton distribution functions (PDFs) and light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) are central non-perturbative objects of interest in high-energy inelastic and elastic scattering, respectively. As a result, an ab-initio determination of these objects is highly desirable. In this paper we present theoretical details for the calculation of the PDFs and LCDAs using a heavy-quark operator product expansion method. This strategy was proposed in a previous paper [Phys. Rev. D 73, 014501 (2006)] for computing higher moments of the PDFs using lattice QCD. Its central feature is the introduction of a fictitious, valence heavy quark. In the current article, we show that the operator product expansion (OPE) of the hadronic matrix element we study can also be expressed as the convolution of a perturbative matching kernel and the corresponding light-cone distribution, which in principle can be inverted to determine the parton momentum fraction dependence. Regarding the extraction of higher moments, this work also provides the one-loop Wilson coefficients in the OPE formulas for the unpolarized PDF, helicity PDF and pseudo-scalar meson LCDAs. Although these Wilson coefficients for the PDFs can be inferred from existing results in the literature, those for the LCDAs are new.

Nucleon electroweak form factors using spin-improved holographic light-front wavefunctions

We construct spin-improved holographic light front wavefunctions for the nucleons (viewed as quark-diquark systems) and use them to successfully predict their electromagnetic Sachs form factors, their electromagnetic charge radii, as well as the axial form factor, charge and radius of the proton. The confinement scale is the universal mass scale of light-front holography, previously extracted from spectroscopic data for light hadrons. With the Dirac and Pauli form factors normalized using the quark counting rules and the measured anomalous magnetic moments respectively, the masses of the quark and diquark are the only remaining adjustable parameters. We fix them using the data set for the proton's Dirac-to-Pauli form factor ratio, and then predict all other data without any further adjustments of parameters. Agreement with data at low momentum-transfer is excellent. Our findings support the idea that light (pseudoscalar and vector) mesons and the nucleons share a nonperturbative universal holographic light-front wavefunction which is modified differently by their spin structures.

Strong vertices of doubly heavy spin-3/2 baryons with light pseudoscalar mesons * *Supported by Iran ScienceElites Federation (Saramadan) (ISEF/M/99171)

The strong coupling constants are basic quantities that carry information on the strong interactions among the baryon and meson multiplets as well as information on the nature and internal structures of the involved hadrons. These parameters are introduced in the transition matrix elements of various decays as main inputs and play key roles in analyses of experimental data including various hadrons. We derive the strong coupling constants among the doubly heavy spin- baryons, and , and light pseudoscalar mesons, π, K, and η, using the light-cone QCD. The values obtained for these constants under study may be used to construct the strong potentials among the doubly heavy spin-3/2 baryons and light pseudoscalar mesons.

One-loop constituent quark contributions to the vector and axial-vector meson curvature mass

The renormalized contribution of fermions to the curvature masses of vector and axial-vector mesons is derived with two different methods at leading order in the loop expansion applied to the (2+1)-flavor constituent quark-meson model. The corresponding contribution to the curvature masses of the scalar and pseudoscalar mesons, already known in the literature, is rederived in a transparent way. The temperature dependence of the curvature mass of various (axial-)vector modes obtained by decomposing the curvature mass tensor is investigated along with the (axial-)vector--(pseudo)scalar mixing. All fermionic corrections are expressed as simple integrals that involve at finite temperature only the Fermi-Dirac distribution function modified by the Polyakov-loop degrees of freedom. The renormalization of the (axial-)vector curvature mass allows us to lift a redundancy in the original Lagrangian of the globally symmetric extended linear sigma model, in which terms already generated by the covariant derivative were reincluded with different coupling constants.

A self-consistent framework of topological amplitude and its SU(N) decomposition

We propose a systematic theoretical framework for the topological amplitudes of the heavy meson decays and their SU(N) decomposition. In the framework, the topologies are expressed in invariant tensors and classified into tree- and penguin-operator-induced diagrams according to which four-quark operators, tree or penguin, being inserted into their effective weak vertexes. The number of possible topologies contributing to one type of decay can be counted by permutations and combinations. The Wigner-Eckhart theorem ensures the topological amplitudes under flavor symmetry are the same for different decay channels. By decomposing the four-quark operators into irreducible representations of SU(N) group, one can get the SU(N) irreducible amplitudes. Taking the D → PP decay (P denoting a pseudoscalar meson) with SU(3)F symmetry as an example, we present our framework in detail. The linear correlation of topologies in the SU(3)F limit is clarified in group theory. It is found there are only nine independent topologies in all tree- and penguin-operator-induced diagrams contributing to the D → PP decays in the Standard Model. If a large quark-loop diagram, named TLP, is assumed, the large ∆ACP and the very different D0→ K+K− and D0→ π+π− branching fractions can be explained with a normal U-spin breaking. Moreover, our framework provides a simple way to analyze the SU(N) breaking effects. The linear SU(3)F breaking and the high order U-spin breaking in charm decays are re-investigated in our framework, which are consistent with literature. Analogous to the degeneracy and splitting of energy levels, we propose the concepts of degeneracy and splitting of topologies to describe the flavor symmetry breaking effects in decay. As applications, we analyze the strange-less D decays in SU(3)F symmetry breaking into Isospin symmetry and the charm-less B decays in SU(4)F symmetry breaking into SU(3)F symmetry.

Portal Effective Theories. A framework for the model independent description of light hidden sector interactions

We present a framework for the construction of portal effective theory (PETs) that couple effective field theories of the Standard Model (SM) to light hidden messenger fields. Using this framework we construct electroweak and strong scale PETs that couple the SM to messengers carrying spin zero, one half, or one. The electroweak scale PETs encompass all portal operators up to dimension five, while the strong scale PETs additionally contain all portal operators of dimension six and seven that contribute at leading order to quark-flavour violating transitions. Using the strong scale PETs, we define a set of portal currents that couple hidden sectors to QCD, and construct portal chiral perturbation theory (χPTs) that relate these currents to the light pseudoscalar mesons. We estimate the coefficients of the portal χPT Lagrangian that are not fixed by SM observations using non-perturbative matching techniques and give a complete list of the resulting one- and two-meson portal interactions. From those, we compute transition amplitudes for three golden channels that are used in hidden sector searches at fixed target experiments: i) charged kaon decay into a charged pion and a spin zero messenger, ii) charged kaon decay into a charged lepton and a spin one half messenger, and iii) neutral pion decay into a photon and a spin one messenger. Finally, we compare these amplitudes to specific expressions for models featuring light scalar particles, axion-like particles, heavy neutral leptons, and dark photons.

P -wave charmed baryons of the SU(3) flavor 6F

We use QCD sum rules to study mass spectra of $P$-wave charmed baryons of the $SU(3)$ flavor $\mathbf{6}_F$. We also use light-cone sum rules to study their $S$- and $D$-wave decays into ground-state charmed baryons together with light pseudoscalar and vector mesons. We work within the framework of heavy quark effective theory, and we also consider the mixing effect. Our results can explain many excited charmed baryons as a whole, including the $\Sigma_c(2800)^0$, $\Xi_c(2923)^0$, $\Xi_c(2939)^0$, $\Xi_{c}(2965)^{0}$, $\Omega_c(3000)^0$, $\Omega_c(3050)^0$, $\Omega_c(3066)^0$, $\Omega_c(3090)^0$, and $\Omega_c(3119)^0$. Their masses, mass splittings within the same multiplets, and decay properties are extracted for future experimental searches.

Spinless mesons and glueballs mixing patterns in SU(3) flavor limit

We present a detailed study of the interactions among scalar and pseudoscalar mesons and glueballs within the framework of the generalized linear sigma model in the SU(3) flavor limit. The basis of our approach is to develop a global understanding of light scalar and pseudoscalar mesons (up to around 2 GeV) and thereby explore the underlying mixings among composite quark matter fields and glueballs. The chiral sector of the Lagrangian is formulated in terms of two chiral nonets representing quark-antiquarks and tetraquarks (in the leading order, this sector contains terms with eight or fewer number of quark or antiquark lines). The Lagrangian also contains a sector that represents scalar and pseudoscalar glueballs and their interactions with the matter chiral fields, in a manner that the axial and trace anomalies of QCD are exactly realized. In this construct, the model has two scalar octets and two pseudoscalar octets (each a linear combination of two- and four-quark components), as well as three scalar SU(3) singlets and three pseudoscalar SU(3) singlets (each a linear combination of two- and four-quark components as well as a glueball component). With the inputs of the experimental masses of a0(980), a0(1450), and the masses of π(137), π(1300) and their decay constants, we perform an extensive numerical simulation to determine the boundaries of the parameter space of the model. We further incorporate experimental data on the mass spectrum of eta states as well as on several decay widths and decay ratios of f0 states to zoom in on the parameter space and make predictions for the substructure of pseudoscalar and scalar SU(3) octets and singlets as well as for the pseudoscalar and scalar glueball masses. We find the scalar and pseudoscalar glueball masses around 1.6 and 2.0 GeV, respectively.

Thermal properties of light mesons from holography

The thermal properties of light mesons, including the temperature dependence of their masses (both screening and pole masses) and thermal widths, are studied in a two-flavor (Nf = 2) soft-wall AdS/QCD model. By solving the spatial correlation functions, we extract the screening masses (mscr) from their poles. The screening masses of pseudo-scalar (π) and axial-vector (a1) mesons increase almost monotonously with the increase of temperature. The screening masses of scalar (σ) and vector (ρ) mesons decrease at low temperature and increase at high temperature. The pole masses (mpole) and the thermal widths (Γ) are extracted from the temporal correlation functions and the corresponding spectral functions. The results indicate that the pole masses have local minima at low temperature and increase at high temperature. The thermal widths increase rapidly above the chiral crossover temperature Tcp, indicating the dissociations of mesons at high temperature. Furthermore, the degeneration of the chiral partners (π and σ, ρ and a1) above Tcp is observed from the screening and pole masses, revealing the chiral symmetry restoration at the hadronic spectrum level. Finally, we numerically verify that the spectral functions in the temporal regime are strongly related to the quasi-normal modes with complex frequencies ω0 = mpole− iΓ/2.

Open charm and charmonium states in strong magnetic fields

The mass modifications of the open charm ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]) mesons, and their effects on the decay widths [Formula: see text] as well as of the charmonium state, [Formula: see text] to open charm mesons ([Formula: see text]), are investigated in the presence of strong magnetic fields. These are studied accounting for the mixing of the pseudoscalar ([Formula: see text]) and vector ([Formula: see text]) mesons ([Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] mixings), with the mixing parameter, [Formula: see text] of a phenomenological three-point ([Formula: see text]) vertex interaction determined from the observed radiative decay width of [Formula: see text]. For charged [Formula: see text] mixing, this parameter is dependent on the magnetic field, because of the Landau level contributions to the vacuum masses of these mesons. The masses of the charged [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] mesons modified due to [Formula: see text] mixing, in addition, have contributions from the lowest Landau levels in the presence of a strong magnetic field. The effects of the magnetic field on the decay widths are studied using a field theoretical model of composite hadrons with quark (and antiquark) constituents. The matrix elements for these decays are evaluated using the light quark–antiquark pair creation term of the free Dirac Hamiltonian for the constituent quark field, with explicit constructions for the charmonium state [Formula: see text], the open charm ([Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text]) mesons and the pion states in terms of the constituent quark fields. The parameter for the charged [Formula: see text] mixing is observed to increase appreciably with increase in the magnetic field. This leads to dominant modifications to their masses, and hence the decay widths of charged [Formula: see text] as well as [Formula: see text] at large values of the magnetic field. The modifications of the masses and decay widths of the open and hidden charm mesons in the presence of strong magnetic fields should have observable consequences on the production of the open charm ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]) mesons as well as of the charmonium states resulting from noncentral ultra-relativistic heavy ion collision experiments.

Global analysis of hadronic two-body B decays in the perturbative QCD approach

Based on the flavor structure of four-quark effective operators, we develop an automatic computation program to calculate hadronic two-body $B$ meson decay amplitudes, and apply it to their global analysis in the perturbative QCD (PQCD) approach. Fitting the PQCD factorization formulas for $B\to PP,VP$ decays at leading order in the strong coupling $\alpha_s$ to measured branching ratios and direct CP asymmetries, we determine the Gegenbauer moments in light meson light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs). It is found that most of the fitted Gegenbauer moments of the twist-2 and twist-3 LCDAs for the pseudoscalar meson $P$ ($P=\pi$, $K$) and vector meson $V$ ($V=\rho$, $K^*$) agree with those derived in QCD sum rules. The shape parameter for the $B_s$ meson distribution amplitude and the weak phase $\phi_3(\gamma)=(75.1\pm2.9)^\circ$ consistent with the value in Particle Data Group are also obtained. It is straightforward to extend our analysis to higher orders and higher powers in the PQCD approach, and to the global determination of LCDAs for other hadrons.

On the group generated by C, P and T: I 2 = T 2 = P 2 = ITP = −1, with applications to pseudo-scalar mesons

We study faithful representations of the discrete Lorentz symmetry operations of parity P and time reversal T , which involve complex phases when acting on fermions. If the phase of P is a rational multiple of π then P 2n = 1 for some positive integer n and it is shown that, when this is the case, P and T generate a discrete group, a dicyclic group (also known as a generalised quaternion group) which are generalisations of the dihedral groups familiar from crystallography. Charge conjugation C introduces another complex phase and, again assuming rational multiples of π for complex phases, TC generates a cyclic group of order 2m for some positive integer m. There is thus a doubly infinite series of possible finite groups labelled by n and m. Demanding that C commutes with P and T forces n = m = 2 and the group generated by P and T is uniquely determined to be the quaternion group. Neutral pseudo-scalar mesons can be simultaneous C and P eigenstates, T commutes with P and C when acting on fermion bi-linears so neutral pseudo-scalar mesons can also be T eigenstates. The T -parity should therefore be experimentally observable and the CPT theorem dictates that T = CP.

Chiral properties of ( 2+1 )-flavor QCD in strong magnetic fields at zero temperature

We present lattice QCD results for masses and magnetic polarizabilities of light and strange pseudoscalar mesons, chiral condensates, decay constants of neutral pion, and neutral kaon in the presence of background magnetic fields with $eB$ ranging up to around 3.35 GeV$^2$ ($\sim70~M_\pi^2$) in the vacuum. The computations were carried out in (2+1)-flavor QCD mostly on $32^3 \times 96$ lattices using the highly improved staggered quark action with $M_{\pi} \approx $ 220 MeV at zero temperature. We find that the masses of neutral pseudoscalar mesons monotonously decrease as the magnetic field strength grows and then saturate at a nonzero value, while there exists a nonmonotonous behavior of charged pion and kaon masses in the magnetic field. We observe a $qB$ scaling of the up and down quark flavor components of neutral pion mass, neutral pion decay constant as well as the quark chiral condensates at 0.05 $\lesssim eB\lesssim$ 3.35 GeV$^2$. We show that the correction to the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation involving the neutral pion is less than 6% and the correction for the relation involving neutral kaon is less than 30% at $eB\lesssim$ 3.35 GeV$^2$. We also derive the Ward-Takahashi identities for QCD in the magnetic field in the continuum formulation including the relation between integrated neutral pseudoscalar meson correlators and chiral condensates.

Each single-energy, single-channel partial-wave analysis is inherently model-dependent

Unfortunately, yes, it is. In ref.[1] it has been shown that without fixing the reaction-amplitude phase, many combinations of partial waves at neighboring energies in single-energy, single-channel partial wave analysis reproduce experimental data identically, but are discontinuous and disconnected. To obtain the continuous solution, the phase has to be fixed to some continuous value. In the same reference it has also been shown that the change of angular part of reaction-amplitude phase mixes partial waves, so the pole structure of any single-energy single-channel partial wave analysis depends on the chosen phase. As in any single-channel analysis the overall reaction-amplitude phase cannot be determined because of continuum ambiguity, it is in principle free and has to be taken from some coupled-channel model. Because of the difference in the angular part of the phase, choosing different phases results in the change of the pole content of the obtained solution. Therefore, single-energy single-channel partial wave analysis is inherently model dependent, and the number of poles it contains strongly depends on the choice of the phase. In that reference these facts have been illustrated on the pseudo-scalar meson production toy model. This truth is now for the measured observables demonstrated on the realistic model of ref. [2] which combines amplitude and partial wave analysis in one self-consistent scheme for the the world collection of {\eta}-photoproduction data, and fixes the phase to BG2014-2 solution [3]. We show that the pole structure of the solution whose phase is very close to the BG2014-2 theoretical ED phase is very similar to the pole structure of BG2014-2 solution, but the agreement with the data is not ideal. However, improving the agreement with the data requires the departure from BG2014-2 ED phase, and this spoils analytic structure of the obtained solution.

Regge theory in a holographic dual of QCD in the Veneziano limit

We initiate the study of Regge theory in a bottom-up holographic model for QCD in the Veneziano limit, where the backreaction of the quarks to the gluon dynamics is included. We determine the parameters of the model by carrying out a precise fit to the meson spectrum in QCD. The spectrum for spin-one and pseudoscalar mesons is well reproduced. We then generalise the model to incluce higher spin fields in the bulk trajectories dual to the Pomeron and meson Regge trajectories at the boundary. With this setting, we fit the masses of the mesons with spins J = 2, 3, and 4, as well as the experimental data of the total cross-sections σ(γγ → X), σ(γp → X) and σ(pp → X). For the cross sections we obtain a {chi}_{mathrm{d}.mathrm{o}.mathrm{f}}^2 of 0.74 for a total of 199 experimental points.