Conformal symmetry and light flavor baryon spectra

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential realization of conformal symmetry in light flavor baryon spectra, explaining observed degeneracies and mass orderings through a conformal model based on AdS_5/CFT_4 principles.

Contribution

It introduces a conformal symmetry-based model for baryon spectra that accounts for degeneracies and mass orderings, incorporating symmetry breaking effects and predicting gluon propagator behavior.

Findings

Baryon resonances fit well into conformal group representations.

The model reproduces correct mass orderings in P11-S11 pairs.

Predicts a finite infrared gluon dressing function.

Abstract

The degeneracy among parity pairs systematically observed in the N and Delta spectra is interpreted to hint on a possible conformal symmetry realization in the light flavor baryon sector in line with AdS_5/CFT_4. The case is made by showing that all the observed N and Delta resonances with masses below 2500 MeV distribute fairly well each over the first levels of a unitary representation of the conformal group, a representation that covers the spectrum of a quark-diquark system, placed directly on the AdS_5 cone, conformally compactified to R^1*S^3. The free geodesic motion on the S^3 manifold is described by means of the scalar conformal equation there, which is of the Klein-Gordon type. The equation is then gauged by the "curved" Coulomb potential that has the form of a cotangent function. Conformal symmetry is not exact, this because the gauge potential slightly modifies the conformal centrifugal barrier of the free geodesic motion. Thanks to this, the degeneracy between P11-S11 pairs from same level is relaxed, while the remaining states belonging to same level remain practically degenerate. The model describes the correct mass ordering in the P11-S11 pairs through the nucleon spectrum as a combined effect of the above conformal symmetry breaking, on the one side, and a parity change of the diquark from a scalar at low masses, to a pseudoscalar at higher masses, on the other. The quality of the wave functions is illustrated by calculations of realistic mean-square charge radii and electric charge form-factors on the examples of the proton, and the protonic P11(1440), and S11(1535) resonances. The scheme also allows for a prediction of the dressing function of an effective instantaneous gluon propagator from the Fourier transform of the gauge potential. We find a dressing function that is finite in the infrared and tends to zero at infinity.