Nec-Essary and Sufficient: G /F M M

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follows. Through the corresponding symmetry current ratio Gπ /Fπ is √a constant in the chiral limit and the pion
the Goldstone bosons couple directly to the vacuum, mass grows as mu + md if the quark masses are turned
on.
h0|A0 (0)|πi =
6 0. (1.3) There is even further symmetry related to the quark
mass term. It is observed that hadrons appear in isospin
In fact, the non-vanishing of this matrix element is a nec- multiplets, characterized by very tiny splittings of the or-
essary and sufficient condition for spontaneous symme- der of a few MeV. These are generated by the small quark
try breaking. In QCD, we have eight (three) Goldstone mass difference mu − md and also by electromagnetic ef-
bosons for SU (3) (SU (2)) with spin zero and negative fects of the same size (with the notable exception of the
parity – the latter property is a consequence that these charged to neutral pion mass difference that is almost en-
Goldstone bosons are generated by applying the axial tirely of electromagnetic origin). This can be made more
charges on the vacuum. The dimensionful scale associ- precise: For mu = md , QCD is invariant under SU (2)
ated with the matrix element Eq. (1.3) is the pion decay isospin transformations: q → q ′ = U q , with U a unitary
constant (in the chiral limit) matrix. In this limit, up and down quarks can not be dis-
entangled as far as the strong interactions are concerned.
h0|Aaµ (0)|π b (p)i = iδ ab F pµ , (1.4) Rewriting of the QCD quark mass term allows to make
the strong isospin violation explicit:
which is a fundamental mass scale of low-energy QCD. In
the world of massless quarks, the value of F differs from SB
HQCD = mu ūu + md dd ¯ (1.8)
the physical value by terms proportional to the quark
=
mu + md ¯ + mu − md (ūu − dd)
(ūu + dd) ¯ ,
masses, to be introduced later, Fπ = F [1 + O(M)]. The 2 2
physical value of Fπ is 92.4 MeV, determined from pion
decay, π → νµ. where the first (second) term is an isoscalar (isovector).
Of course, in QCD the quark masses are not exactly Extending these considerations to SU (3), one arrives at
zero. The quark mass term leads to the so-called explicit the eighfold way of Gell-Mann and Ne’eman that played a
chiral symmetry breaking. Consequently, the vector and decisive role in our understanding of the quark structure
axial-vector currents are no longer conserved (with the of the hadrons. The SU (3) flavor symmetry is also an
exception of the baryon number current) approximate one, but the breaking is much stronger than
it is the case for isospin. From this, one can directly infer
1 1 that the quark mass difference ms − md must be much
∂µ Vaµ = iq̄ [M, λa ] q , ∂µ Aµa =
iq̄ {M, λa } γ5 q . bigger than md − mu .
2 2
(1.5) The consequences of these broken symmetries can be
However, the consequences of the spontaneous symme- analyzed systematically in a suitably tailored effective
try violation can still be analyzed systematically because field theory (EFT), as discussed in more detail below.
the quark masses are small. QCD possesses what is called At this point, it is important to stress that the chiral
an approximate chiral symmetry. In that case, the mass symmetry of QCD plays a crucial role in determining the
spectrum of the unperturbed Hamiltonian and the one longest ranged parts of the nuclear force, which, as we
including the quark masses can not be significantly dif- will show, is given by Goldstone boson exchange between
ferent. Stated differently, the effects of the explicit sym- two and more nucleons. This was already stressed long
metry breaking can be analyzed in perturbation theory. ago, see e.g (9) (and references therein) but only with
As a consequence, QCD has a remarkable mass gap - the the powerful machinery of chiral effective field theory this
pions (and, to a lesser extent, the kaons and the eta) are connection could be worked out model-independently, as
much lighter than all other hadrons. To be more specific, we will show in what follows.
consider chiral SU (2). The second formula of Eq. (1.5)
is nothing but a Ward-identity (WI) that relates the ax-
ial current Aµ = dγ¯ µ γ5 u with the pseudoscalar density B. Scales in nuclear physics
¯
P = diγ5 u,
To appreciate the complexity related to a theoretical
∂µ Aµ = (mu + md ) P . (1.6) description of the nuclear forces, it is most instructive to
briefly discuss the pertinent scales arising in this prob-
Taking on-shell pion matrix elements of this WI, one ar- lem. This can most easily be visualized by looking at
rives at the phenomenological central potential between two nu-
cleons, as it appears e.g. in meson-theoretical approaches
Gπ to the nuclear force, see Fig. 1. The longest range part
Mπ2 = (mu + md ) , (1.7)
Fπ of the interaction is the one-pion exchange (OPE) that
is firmly rooted in QCD’s chiral symmetry. Thus, the
where the coupling Gπ is given by h0|P (0)|π(p)i = Gπ .
corresponding natural scale of the nuclear force problem
This equation leads to some intriguing consequences: In
is the Compton wavelength of the pion
the chiral limit, the pion mass is exactly zero - in ac-
cordance with Goldstone’s theorem. More precisely, the λπ = 1/Mπ ≃ 1.5 fm , (1.9)

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