What is the significance of pions as Goldstone bosons in quantum field theory?

  • Thread starter Thread starter shakespeare86
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Boson Pion
Click For Summary
Pions are identified as Goldstone bosons resulting from the spontaneous symmetry breaking of chiral symmetry in quantum field theory. The discussion references the weak decay process of pions and the associated axial current, highlighting the relationship between the pion's momentum and its role as a massless spin-0 particle. The equations presented illustrate that the pion's properties align with those of a Goldstone boson, particularly in relation to the axial current conservation. Questions arise regarding the choice of current representation and the nature of the vector versus pseudovector components in the equations. The conclusion suggests that the vector part of the current vanishes due to the pseudovector nature of the pion, reinforcing the theoretical framework of Goldstone bosons in this context.
shakespeare86
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
I'm reading Zee book on quantum field theory.
He wants to explain that pion is the goldstone boson arising from the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the chiral symmetry.
So he
start with the weak decay
\pi^{-} \rightarrow \bar{\nu} + e^{-}
and write this equation
<0|J^{\mu}_{5}|k>=f k^{\mu} (1),
where k is the momentum of the pion.

Then, of course, if you act with k_{\mu} on the left, you get
k_{\mu }<0|J^{\mu}_{5}|k>=f m _{\pi} (2)
and we see that if we consider the pion as a massless spin 0 particle, it is a good candidate for a goldstone boson associated with the spontaneous breaking of the chiral symmetry, because it then follows that
\partial_{\mu} J_{5}^{\mu} = 0

My questions are:
-why in (1) he wrote only the axial current and he doesn't write something like
<0|J^{\mu}-J^{\mu}_{5}|k>
?
-why the right hand side of (1) is just a vector while the left hand side is a pseudovector?

Thank you!
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
The answer to my second question may be that under spatial riflession \pi is a pseudo scalar and thus, the first member is a vector too. And so follows the answer to the first question: the expectation value of the vector part of the current vanishes because it's a pseudovector and it's impossible to form a pesudo vector with the only vector k.
 
Last edited:
Time reversal invariant Hamiltonians must satisfy ##[H,\Theta]=0## where ##\Theta## is time reversal operator. However, in some texts (for example see Many-body Quantum Theory in Condensed Matter Physics an introduction, HENRIK BRUUS and KARSTEN FLENSBERG, Corrected version: 14 January 2016, section 7.1.4) the time reversal invariant condition is introduced as ##H=H^*##. How these two conditions are identical?

Similar threads

  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
1K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
1K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K
  • · Replies 8 ·
Replies
8
Views
2K
  • · Replies 24 ·
Replies
24
Views
3K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K
  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
7K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
1K
  • · Replies 15 ·
Replies
15
Views
2K