arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Gerhard Ecker.
James Chadwick is known for his discovery of the neutron. Many of his earlier findings and ideas in the context of weak and strong nuclear forces are much less known. This biographical sketch attempts to highlight the achievements of a scientist who paved the way for contemporary subatomic physics.
The status of chiral perturbation theory in the meson sector is illustrated with several topical examples. The longtime discrepancy between theory and experiment for the charged pion polarizabilities has now been resolved in favour of the chiral SU(2) result to next-to-next-to-leading order. For chiral SU(3), the main obstacles are the large number of badly known coupling constants (LECs) and the lack of convergence of the low-energy expansion in many cases of interest. I describe a new global fit of the LECs in the strong sector that leads to a prediction of the CKM matrix element $V_{us}$ in agreement with the latest lattice determinations. The slow convergence of the chiral series is particularly acute in transitions with strong final-state interactions calling for dispersive treatments. The status of dispersive approaches is reviewed for $K_{\ell 4}$ decays and for $η-> 3 π$ decays where precise measurements of Dalitz plot distributions have recently become available.
We review the status of the coupling constants of chiral Lagrangians in the meson sector, the so-called low-energy constants (LECs). Special emphasis is put on the chiral $SU(2)$ and $SU(3)$ Lagrangians for the strong interactions of light mesons. The theoretical and experimental input for determining the corresponding LECs is discussed. In the two-flavour sector, we review the knowledge of the $O(p^4)$ LECs from both continuum fits and lattice QCD analyses. For chiral $SU(3)$, NNLO effects play a much bigger role. Our main new results are fits of the LECs $L_i$ both at NLO and NNLO, making extensive use of the available knowledge of NNLO LECs. We compare our results with available lattice determinations. Resonance saturation of LECs and the convergence of chiral $SU(3)$ to NNLO are discussed. We also review the status of predictions for the LECs of chiral Lagrangians with dynamical photons and leptons.
Chiral perturbation theory is the effective field theory of the Standard Model at low energies. After a short introduction and overview, I discuss three topics where the chiral approach leads to a deeper understanding of low-energy hadron physics: radiative kaon decays, carbogenesis in stellar nucleosynthesis and the interplay of chiral perturbation theory and lattice QCD.
Approximations of chiral SU(3) amplitudes at NNLO are proposed to facilitate the extrapolation of lattice data to the physical meson masses. Inclusion of NNLO terms is essential for investigating convergence properties of chiral SU(3) and for determining low-energy constants in a controllable fashion. The approximations are tested with recent lattice data for the ratio of decay constants F_K/F_pi.
We propose analytic approximations of chiral SU(3) amplitudes for the extrapolation of lattice data to the physical meson masses. The method allows the determination of NNLO low-energy constants in a controllable fashion. We test the approach with recent lattice data for the ratio F_K/F_pi of meson decay constants.
The status of chiral perturbation theory in the meson sector is reviewed. The main emphasis is on recent developments in pion pion scattering, in semileptonic decays and in nonleptonic kaon decays. A few other selected topics are also discussed.
We show that the number of operators in the presently known mesonic chiral Lagrangian of order p^6 in the two-flavour sector can be reduced by at least one from 57 to 56 by providing an explicit relation among the operators. We briefly discuss the relevance of this new relation.
The progress in determining the coupling constants of mesonic chiral Lagrangians is reviewed, with emphasis on the work performed in three successive European Networks (Eurodaphne I and II, Euridice). Reliable estimates of those constants are essential for making full use of next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations in chiral perturbation theory. The precision in the values of the strong coupling constants of O(p^4) has been increasing steadily over the years. The situation is less satisfactory in the nonleptonic weak sector where further phenomenological input and more theoretical work are needed. A lot of progress has recently been achieved for electromagnetic coupling constants occurring in radiative corrections for mesonic processes at low energies.
After a brief historical review of the emergence of QCD as the quantum field theory of strong interactions, the basic notions of colour and gauge invariance are introduced leading to the QCD Lagrangian. The second lecture is devoted to perturbative QCD, from tree-level processes to higher-order corrections in renormalized perturbation theory, including jet production in e+ e- annihilation, hadronic tau decays and deep inelastic scattering. The final two lectures treat various aspects of QCD beyond perturbation theory. The main theme is effective field theories, from heavy quarks to the light quark sector where the spontaneously broken chiral symmetry of QCD plays a crucial role.
We construct the effective chiral Lagrangian for chiral perturbation theory in the mesonic even-intrinsic-parity sector at order $p^6$. The Lagrangian contains 112 in principle measurable + 3 contact terms for the general case of $n$ light flavours, 90+4 for three and 53+4 for two flavours. The equivalence between equations of motion and field redefinitions to remove spurious terms in the Lagrangians is shown to all orders in the chiral expansion. We also discuss and implement other methods for reducing the number of terms to a minimal set.
Broken chiral symmetry has become the basis for a unified treatment of hadronic interactions at low energies. After reviewing mechanisms for spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, I outline the construction of the low--energy effective field theory of the Standard Model called chiral perturbation theory. The loop expansion and the renormalization procedure for this nonrenormalizable quantum field theory are developed. Evidence for the standard scenario with a large quark condensate is presented, in particular from high--statistics lattice calculations of the meson mass spectrum. Elastic pion--pion scattering is discussed as an example of a complete calculation to O(p^6) in the low--energy expansion. The meson--baryon system is the subject of the last lecture. After a short summary of heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory, a recent analysis of pion--nucleon scattering to O(p^3) is reviewed. Finally, I describe some very recent progress in the chiral approach to the nucleon--nucleon interaction.
Elastic pion-pion and pion-nucleon scattering are reviewed in the context of chiral perturbation theory. Theoretical results from systematic low-energy expansions to O(p^6) for pion-pion and to O(p^3) for pion-nucleon scattering are compared with experimental data. Possible future developments are outlined.
A survey is made of semileptonic and nonleptonic kaon decays in the framework of chiral perturbation theory. The emphasis is on what has been done rather than how it was done. The theoretical predictions are compared with available experimental results.
After a general introduction to the structure of effective field theories, the main ingredients of chiral perturbation theory are reviewed. Applications include the light quark mass ratios and pion-pion scattering to two-loop accuracy. In the pion-nucleon system, the linear sigma model is contrasted with chiral perturbation theory. The heavy-nucleon expansion is used to construct the effective pion-nucleon Lagrangian to third order in the low-energy expansion, with applications to nucleon Compton scattering.
After a brief introduction to chiral perturbation theory, the effective field theory of the standard model at low energies, two recent applications are reviewed: elastic pion-pion scattering to two-loop accuracy and the complete renormalized pion-nucleon Lagrangian to $O(p^3)$ in the chiral expansion.
The renormalized pion-nucleon Lagrangian is calculated to O(p^3) in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. By suitably chosen transformations of the nucleon field, the Lagrangian is brought to a standard form.
The main elements and methods of chiral perturbation theory, the effective field theory of the Standard Model below the scale of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, are summarized. Applications to the interactions of mesons and baryons at low energies are reviewed, with special emphasis on developments of the last three years. Among the topics covered are the strong, electromagnetic and semileptonic weak interactions of mesons at and beyond next--to--leading order in the chiral expansion, nonleptonic weak interactions of mesons, virtual photon corrections and the meson--baryon system. The discussion is limited to processes at zero temperature, for infinite volume and with at most one baryon.