Pion structure in the nuclear medium

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the properties of the pion, such as its electromagnetic form factor, charge radius, and decay constant, are altered when the pion is in symmetric nuclear matter, using a light-front wave function and quark-meson coupling model.

Contribution

It introduces a consistent approach combining a light-front pion wave function with the quark-meson coupling model to study in-medium pion properties.

Findings

In-medium modifications of the pion's electromagnetic form factor

Changes in the pion charge radius in nuclear matter

Alterations in the weak decay constant within the medium

Abstract

Using the light-front pion wave function based on a Bethe-Salpeter amplitude model, we study the properties of the pion in symmetric nuclear matter. The pion model we adopt is well constrained by previous studies to explain the pion properties in vacuum. In order to consistently incorporate the constituent up and down quarks of the pion immersed in symmetric nuclear matter, we use the quark-meson coupling model, which has been widely applied to various hadronic and nuclear phenomena in a nuclear medium with success. We predict the in-medium modifications of the pion lectromagnetic form factor, charge radius and weak decay constant in symmetric nuclear matter.