Chiral perturbation theory

Abstract

In the limit of vanishing up, down and strange quark masses, QCD exhibits a chiral symmetry. This symmetry is broken spontaneously to its vector subgroup, giving rise to Goldstone bosons. These acquire a small mass through the explicit chiral symmetry breaking for non-vanishing quark masses. The consequences of these broken symmetries can be investigated in a suitably tailored effective field theory called chiral pertubation theory. It admits a perturbative expansion in the external momenta and the Goldstone boson masses and can be systematically analyzed in terms of a loop expansion. The appearing ultraviolet divergences in loop diagrams can be dealt with order-by-order through the Goldstone boson contact interactions. Matter fields like the lowest-lying baryons can also included, leading to a rich and testable phenomenology of low-energy QCD.