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Title: More on the infrared renormalization group limit cycle in QCD

Journal Article · · European Journal of Physics C

We present a detailed study of the recently conjectured infrared renormalization group limit cycle in QCD using chiral effective field theory. It was conjectured that small increases in the up and down quark masses can move QCD to the critical trajectory for an infrared limit cycle in the three-nucleon system. At the critical quark masses, the binding energies of the deuteron and its spin-singlet partner are tuned to zero and the triton has infinitely many excited states with an accumulation point at the three-nucleon threshold. We exemplify three parameter sets where this effect occurs at next-to-leading order in the chiral counting. For one of them, we study the structure of the three-nucleon system in detail using both chiral and contact effective field theories. Furthermore, we investigate the matching of the chiral and contact theories in the critical region and calculate the influence of the limit cycle on three-nucleon scattering observables.

Research Organization:
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE - Office of Energy Research (ER)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-84ER40150
OSTI ID:
894652
Report Number(s):
JLAB-THY-06-516; DOE/ER/40150-4112; hep-ph/0602225; TRN: US0700211
Journal Information:
European Journal of Physics C, Vol. 48, Issue 1; ISSN 1434--6044
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English