The notion that the scalar listed as $f_0 (500)$ in the particle data booklet is a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone (NG) boson of spontaneously broken scale symmetry, explicitly broken by a small departure from an infrared fixed point, is explored in nuclear d
ynamics. That notion which puts the scalar -- that we shall identify as a dilaton -- on the same footing as the pseudo-scalar pseudo-NG bosons, i.e., octet $pi$, while providing a simple explanation for the $Delta I=1/2$ rule for kaon decay, generalizes the standard chiral perturbation theory (S$chi$PT) to scale chiral perturbation theory, denoted $chi$PT$_sigma$, with {it one infrared mass scale for both symmetries}, with the $sigma$ figuring as a chiral singlet NG mode in non-strange sector. Applied to nuclear dynamics, it is seen to provide possible answers to various hitherto unclarified nuclear phenomena such as the success of one-boson-exchange potentials (OBEP), the large cancellation of strongly attractive scalar potential by strongly repulsive vector potential in relativistic mean field theory of nuclear systems and in-medium QCD sum rules, the interplay of the dilaton and the vector meson $omega$ in dense skyrmion matter, the BPS skyrmion structure of nuclei accounting for small binding energies of medium-heavy nuclei, and the suppression of hyperon degrees of freedom in compact-star matter.
We formulate kaon condensation in dense baryonic matter with anti-kaons fluctuating from the Fermi-liquid fixed point. This entails that in the Wilsonian RG approach, the decimation is effectuated in the baryonic sector to the Fermi surface while in
the meson sector to the origin. In writing the kaon-baryon (KN) coupling, we will take a generalized hidden local symmetry Lagrangian for the meson sector endowed with a mended symmetry that has the unbroken symmetry limit at high density in which the Goldstone $pi$, scalar $s$, and vectors $rho$ (and $omega$) and $a_1$ become massless. The vector mesons $rho$ (and $omega$) and $a_1$ can be identified as emergent (hidden) local gauge fields and the scalar $s$ as the dilaton field of the spontaneously broken scale invariance at chiral restoration. In matter-free space, when the vector mesons and the scalar meson -- whose masses are much greater than that of the pion -- are integrated out, then the resulting KN coupling Lagrangian consists of the leading chiral order ($O(p^1)$) Weinberg-Tomozawa term and the next chiral order ($O(p^2)$) $Sigma_{KN}$ term. In addressing kaon condensation in dense nuclear matter in chiral perturbation theory (ChPT), one makes an expansion in the small Fermi momentum $k_F$. We argue that in the Wilsonian RG formalism with the Fermi-liquid fixed point, the expansion is on the contrary in $1/k_F$ with the large Fermi momentum $k_F$. The kaon-quasinucleon interaction resulting from integrating out the massive mesons consists of a relevant term from the scalar exchange (analog to the $Sigma_{KN}$ term) and an irrelevant term from the vector-meson exchange (analog to the Weinberg-Tomozawa term). It is found that the critical density predicted by the latter approach, controlled by the relevant term, is three times less than that predicted by chiral perturbation theory.
