How the axial anomaly controls flavor mixing among mesons

TL;DR

This paper explores how the axial anomaly influences flavor mixing in mesons of various spins using effective Lagrangians, revealing that anomaly-invariant terms cause mixing in heterochiral multiplets but not in homochiral ones.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of meson flavor mixing by classifying mesons into hetero- and homochiral multiplets and analyzing the impact of the axial anomaly across different spins.

Findings

Heterochiral multiplets exhibit flavor mixing due to low-dimension anomaly-invariant terms.

Homochiral multiplets remain flavor diagonal because such anomaly-invariant terms are absent.

Predictions are made for flavor mixing patterns in mesons with spins two and three.

Abstract

It is well known that because of the axial anomaly in QCD, mesons with $J^P = 0^-$ are close to $SU(3)_{\mathrm{V}}$ eigenstates: the $eta^\prime(958)$ meson is largely a singlet, and the $\eta$ meson an octet. In contrast, states with $J^P = 1^-$ are flavor diagonal: \textit{e.g.}, the $\phi(1020)$ is almost pure $\bar{s} s$. Using effective Lagrangians, we show how this generalizes to states with higher spin, assuming that they can be classified according to the unbroken chiral symmetry of $G_{\mathrm{fl}} = SU(3)_{\mathrm{L}} \times SU(3)_{\mathrm{R}}$. We construct effective Lagrangians from terms invariant under $G_{\mathrm{fl}}$, and introduce the concept of \textit{hetero-} and \textit{homo}chiral multiplets. Because of the axial anomaly, only terms invariant under the $Z(3)_{\mathrm{A}}$ subgroup of the axial $U(1)_{\mathrm{A}}$ enter. For heterochiral multiplets, which begin with that including the $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime(958)$, there are $Z(3)_{\mathrm{A}}$ invariant terms with low mass dimension which cause states to mix according to $SU(3)_{\mathrm{V}}$ flavor. For homochiral multiplets, which begin with that including the $\phi(1020)$, there are no $Z(3)_{\mathrm{A}}$ invariant terms with low mass dimension, and so states are diagonal in flavor. In this way we predict the flavor mixing for the heterochiral multiplet with spin one, as well as for hetero- and homochiral multiplets with spin two and spin three.