No Arabic abstract
A new formalism to calculate the in-medium chiral condensate is presented. At lower densities, this approach leads to a linear expression. If we demand a compatibility with the famous model-independent result, then the pion-nucleon sigma term should be six times the average current mass of light quarks. QCD-like interactions may slow the decreasing behavior of the condensate with increasing densities, compared with the linear extrapolation, if densities are lower than twice the nuclear saturation density. At higher densities, the condensate vanishes inevitably.
We present a consistent implementation of weak decays involving an axion or axion-like particle in the context of an effective chiral Lagrangian. We argue that previous treatments of such processes have used an incorrect representation of the flavor-changing quark currents in the chiral theory. As an application, we derive model-independent results for the decays $K^-topi^- a$ and $pi^-to e^-bar u_e a$ at leading order in the chiral expansion and for arbitrary axion couplings and mass. In particular, we find that the $K^-topi^- a$ branching ratio is almost 40 times larger than previously estimated.
We study the dynamics of the chiral phase transition expected during the expansion of the quark-gluon plasma produced in a high energy hadron or heavy ion collision, using the $O(4)$ linear sigma model in the mean field approximation. Imposing boost invariant initial conditions at an initial proper time $tau_0$ and starting from an approximate equilibrium configuration, we investigate the possibility of formation of disoriented chiral condensate during the expansion. In order to create large domains of disoriented chiral condensates low-momentum instabilities have to last for long enough periods of time. Our simulations show no instabilities for an initial thermal configuration. For some of the out-of-equilibrium initial states studied, the fluctuation in the number of particles with low transverse momenta become large at late proper times.
We investigate higher cumulants of the sigma field as the chiral order parameter at the QCD phase transition. We derive a thermodynamic expression for the skewness and kurtosis from susceptibilities and use these to determine $Ssigma$ and $kappasigma^2$ for the sigma field in equilibrium. In a next step, we study the behavior of these cumulants in both an equilibrated static medium and an expanding medium resembling the hydrodynamic stage of a heavy-ion collision. For the latter one, we find a significant broadening of the critical region.
The saturation of QCD chiral sum rules is reanalyzed in view of the new and complete analysis of the ALEPH experimental data on the difference between vector and axial-vector correlators (V-A). Ordinary finite energy sum rules (FESR) exhibit poor saturation up to energies below the tau-lepton mass. A remarkable improvement is achieved by introducing pinched, as well as minimizing polynomial integral kernels. Both methods are used to determine the dimension d=6 and d=8 vacuum condensates in the Operator Product Expansion, with the results: {O}_{6}=-(0.00226 pm 0.00055) GeV^6, and O_8=-(0.0053 pm 0.0033) GeV^8 from pinched FESR, and compatible values from the minimizing polynomial FESR. Some higher dimensional condensates are also determined, although we argue against extending the analysis beyond dimension d = 8. The value of the finite remainder of the (V-A) correlator at zero momentum is also redetermined: Pi (0)= -4 bar{L}_{10}=0.02579 pm 0.00023. The stability and precision of the predictions are significantly improved compared to earlier calculations using the old ALEPH data. Finally, the role and limits of applicability of the Operator Product Expansion in this channel are clarified.
We present a novel treatment for calculating the in-medium quark condensates. The advantage of this approach is that one does not need to make further assumptions on the derivatives of model parameters with respect to the quark current mass. The normally accepted model-independent result in nuclear matter is naturally reproduced. The change of the quark condensate induced by interactions depends on the incompressibility of nuclear matter. When it is greater than 260 MeV, the density at which the condensate vanishes is higher than that from the linear extrapolation. For the chiral condensate in quark matter, a similar model-independent linear behavior is found at lower densities, which means that the decreasing speed of the condensate in quark matter is merely half of that in nuclear matter if the pion-nucleon sigma commutator is six times the average current mass of u and d quarks. The modification due to QCD-like interactions is found to slow the decreasing speed of the condensate, compared with the linear extrapolation.