Symmetries and in-medium effects: Chiral symmetry breaking and modification of meson properties in a strongly interacting medium

Chiral symmetry is a fundamental symmetry of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in the limit of vanishing quark masses. In the hadronic sector chiral symmetry is broken; otherwise chiral partners - hadronic states with the same spin but opposite parity - should be degenerate in mass which is not observed...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Metag Volker
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: EDP Sciences 2014-01-01
Series:EPJ Web of Conferences
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20147806003
Description
Summary:Chiral symmetry is a fundamental symmetry of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in the limit of vanishing quark masses. In the hadronic sector chiral symmetry is broken; otherwise chiral partners - hadronic states with the same spin but opposite parity - should be degenerate in mass which is not observed in nature. It has been suggested that chiral symmetry might at least be partially restored in a strongly interacting environment. As a consequence, properties of hadrons, encoded in their mass and width, may be modified when embedded in a nucleus. These ideas have motivated widespread theoretical and experimental activities. As an example, recent experimental results on the in-medium properties of the η′ meson are presented.
ISSN:2100-014X