arXiv subjects

Michael C. Birse

Publications and source records attributed to Michael C. Birse.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2001

Mesonic fluctuations in a nonlocal Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model

The effects of meson fluctuations are studied in a nonlocal generalization of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model, by including terms of next-to-leading order (NLO) in 1/N_c. In the model with only scalar and pseudoscalar interactions NLO contributions to the quark condensate are found to be very small. This is a result of cancellation between virtual mesons and Fock terms, which occurs for the parameter sets of most interest. In the quark self-energy, similar cancellations arise in the tadpole diagrams, although not in other NLO pieces which contribute at the \sim 25% level. The effects on pion properties are also found to be small. NLO contributions from real $ππ$ intermediate states increase the sigma meson mass by $\sim 30%$. In an extended model with vector and axial interactions, there are indications that NLO effects could be larger.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

Colour superconductivity in finite systems

In this paper we study the effect of finite size on the two-flavour colour superconducting state. As well as restricting the quarks to a box, we project onto states of good baryon number and onto colour singlets, these being necessary restrictions on any observable ``quark nuggets''. We find that whereas finite size alone has a significant effect for very small boxes, with the superconducting state often being destroyed, the effect of projection is to restore it again. The infinite-volume limit is a good approximation even for quite small systems.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

A renormalisation-group approach to two-body scattering with long-range forces

We apply the renormalisation-group to two-body scattering by a combination of known long-range and unknown short-range forces. A crucial feature is that the low-energy effective theory is regulated by applying a cut-off in the basis of distorted waves for the long range potential. We illustrate the method by applying it to scattering in the presence of a repulsive 1/r^2 potential. We find a trivial fixed point, describing systems with weak short-range interactions, and a unstable fixed point. The expansion around the latter corresponds to a distorted-wave effective-range expansion.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2001

Phases of QCD with nonvanishing isopin density

The propagation of low-momentum baryons through QCD matter at low isospin density is studied using chiral perturbation theory. When the isospin chemical potential exceeds a critical value, the dispersion relation for the lowest nucleon mode becomes anomalous near zero momentum---increasing momentum yields decreasing energy---so that the momentum for the lowest energy state, p_min, becomes nonzero. This can be interpreted as a new phase of QCD, with p_min serving as the order parameter and the kinetic mass (defined as the inverse of the second derivative of the energy with respect to the momentum at p_min) serving as the susceptibility. A lowest-order chiral-perturbation-theory calculation yields a critical isospin chemical potential of 285 MeV. Since this is small compared to the chiral-symmetry-breaking scale, corrections to it are likely to be modest.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2000

Comment on "Complete One-Loop Analysis of the Nucleon's Spin Polarisabilities"

We comment on the paper of Gellas et al, nucl-th/0002027, in which heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory results for the spin polarisabilities of the nucleon are given. That paper uses a definition which is different from the one used in papers by us, hep-ph/9908526, hep-ph/9909442 and hep-ph/0002133. In this comment we show that it is the latter definition, and not that of Gellas et al, that should be compared with the values of the polarisabilities extracted from dispersion relation analyses.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2000

Spin polarisabilities of the nucleon at NLO in the chiral expansion

We present a calculation of the fourth-order (NLO) contribution to spin-dependent Compton scattering in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, and we give results for the four spin polarisabilities. These results have been presented before, in hep-ph/0002133. Here we address the issue of whether one-particle reducible graphs in the heavy baryon theory contribute to the polarisabilities.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2000

Spin polarisabilities of the nucleon at NLO in the chiral expansion

We present a calculation of the fourth-order (NLO) contribution to spin-dependent Compton scattering in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, and we give results for the four spin polarisabilities. No low-energy constants, except for the anomalous magnetic moments of the nucleon, enter at this order. For forward scattering the fourth-order piece of the spin polarisability of the proton turns out to be almost twice the size of the leading piece, with the opposite sign. This leads to the conclusion that no prediction can currently be made for this quantity. For backward scattering the fourth-order contribution is much smaller than the third-order piece which is dominated by the anomalous scattering, and so cannot explain the discrepancy between the CPT result and the current best experimental determination.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

Nothing anomalous about two-loop HBCPT: consistency with the LET for spin-dependent Compton scattering

The leading order contributions of processes involving anomalous pion-photon vertices to forward spin-dependent Compton scattering from nucleons are considered in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory. These all involve the exchange of three pions between one or two photons and the nucleon, and hence are two-loop processes. We find that the sum of these processes vanishes in the manner predicted by the low energy theorem of Low, Gell-Mann and Goldberger as the photon energy goes to zero. This provides the first consistency test of two-loop HBCPT.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

Nucleons or diquarks? Competition between clustering and color superconductivity in quark matter

We study the instabilities of quark matter in the framework of a generalized Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, in order to explore possible competition between three-quark clustering to form nucleons and diquark formation leading to color superconductivity. Nucleon and $Δ$ solutions are obtained for the relativistic Faddeev equation at finite density and their binding energies are compared with those for the scalar and axial-vector diquarks found from the Bethe-Salpeter equation. In a model with interactions in both scalar and axial diquark channels, bound nucleons exist up to nuclear matter density. However, except at densities below about a quarter of that of nuclear matter, we find that scalar diquark formation is energetically favored. This raises the question of whether a realistic phase diagram of baryonic matter can be obtained from any model which does not incorporate color confinement.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

A renormalisation-group treatment of two-body scattering

A Wilsonian renormalisation group is used to study nonrelativistic two-body scattering by a short-ranged potential. We identify two fixed points: a trivial one and one describing systems with a bound state at zero energy. The eigenvalues of the linearised renormalisation group are used to assign a systematic power-counting to terms in the potential near each of these fixed points. The expansion around the nontrivial fixed point is shown to be equivalent to the effective-range expansion.

nucl-th↗

arXiv1999

Spin polarisability of the nucleon at NLO in the chiral expansion

We present a calculation of the fourth-order (NLO) contribution to spin-dependent forward Compton scattering in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory. No low-energy constants, except for the anomalous magnetic moments of the nucleon, enter at this order. The fourth-order piece of the spin polarisability of the proton turns out to be almost twice the size of the leading piece, with the opposite sign. This leads to the conclusion that no prediction can currently be made for this quantity.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

A renormalisation-group treatment of two-body scattering

Nonrelativistic two-body scattering by a short-ranged potential is studied using the renormalisation group. Two fixed points are identified: a trivial one and one describing systems with a bound state at zero energy. The eigenvalues of the linearised renormalisation group are used to assign a systematic power-counting to terms in the potential near each of these fixed points. The expansion around the nontrivial fixed point is shown to be equivalent to the effective-range expansion.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

Reply to Comment on ``Determination of pion-baryon coupling constants from QCD sum rules''

In response to Kim's comment (nucl-th/9903040) on the sum rules for pion-baryon coupling constants obtained in hep-ph/9512259 and hep-ph/9606471, we point out that our treatment of the continuum is consistent with duality and with the fact that the correlator in the presence of an external meson or field should be represented by a double dispersion relation.

nucl-th↗

arXiv1998

Comment on "Suppression of piNN* Coupling and Chiral Symmetry"

Jido, Oka and Hosaka have shown that the p-slash gamma_5 piece of the pion-to-vacuum correlator of two baryon interpolating fields vanishes in the soft-pion limit, as a consequence of chiral transformation properties of those fields. This is a statement about the particular combination of pion-baryon couplings and subtraction terms that corresponds to the chosen interpolating fields. It does not imply that the physical piNN* coupling of the N(1535) is suppressed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1998

On the absence of fifth-order contributions to the nucleon mass in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory

(New version with some expanded discussion; figures and minor typos corrected.) We have calculated the contribution proportional to the fifth power of the pion mass in the chiral expansion of the nucleon mass in two flavour HBCPT. Only one irreducible two-loop integral enters, and this vanishes. All other corrections in the heavy-baryon limit can be absorbed in the physical pion-nucleon coupling constant which enters in the third order term, and so there are no contributions at fifth order. Including finite nucleon mass corrections, the only contribution agrees with the expansion of the relativistic one-loop graph in powers of the ration of the pion and nucleon masses, and is only 0.3% of the third order term. This is an encouraging result for the convergence of two-flavour heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1998

The Wilson Renormalisation Group Applied to the Potential in NN Scattering

Nonrelativistic two-body scattering by a short-ranged potential is studied using the renormalisation group. Two fixed points are identified: a trivial one and one describing systems with a bound state at zero energy. The eigenvalues of the linearised renormalisation group are used to assign a systematic power-counting to terms in the potential near each of these fixed points. The expansion around the nontrivial fixed point defines a power counting scheme which is equivalent to the effective-range expansion.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1998

Chiral symmetry in matter

Soft-pion theorems are used to show how chiral symmetry constrains the contributions of low-momentum pions to the quark condensate, the pion decay constant and hadron masses, all of which have been proposed as signals of partial restoration of chiral symmetry in matter. These have contributions of order T^2 for a pion gas or of order m_pi for cold nuclear matter, which have different coefficients in all three cases, showing that there are no simple relations between the changes to these quantities in matter. In particular, such contributions are absent from the masses of vector mesons and nucleons and so these masses cannot scale as any simple function of the quark condensate. More generally, pieces of the quark condensate that arise from low-momentum pions should not be associated with partial restoration of chiral symmetry.

nucl-th↗

arXiv1998

Renormalising NN scattering: is power counting powerless?

The renormalisation of NN scattering in theories with zero-range interactions is examined using a cut-off regularisation where the cut-off is taken to infinity, dimensional regularisation (DR) with minimal subtraction, and DR with power-divergence subtraction. In the infinite cut-off limit power counting breaks down: terms of different orders in the potential contribute to the scattering amplitude at the same order. Minimal subtraction does yield a systematic expansion, but with a very limited range of validity for systems that have unnaturally large scattering lengths. For a finite cut-off, the behaviour of the couplings as the cut-off is lowered shows that a theory with a natural scattering length approaches an IR fixed point. In the corresponding effective theory, loop corrections can be treated perturbatively. In contrast, if there is an IR fixed point for systems with an infinite scattering length it must be a nonperturbative one, with no power counting. For such systems, power-divergence subtraction appears to yield a systematic expansion, but with a different power counting from Weinberg's. However the scheme omits IR divergent terms that would otherwise lead to nonperturbative behaviour and so the interpretation of the fixed point remains unclear.

nucl-th↗