Charge Symmetry Breaking Effects in Pion and Kaon Structure

TL;DR

This paper investigates charge symmetry breaking effects in pion and kaon structures using a confining NJL model, revealing significant impacts on electromagnetic form factors and smaller effects on parton distribution functions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of CSB effects in meson structure functions and form factors within a chiral symmetry breaking framework, highlighting the role of quark mass differences.

Findings

CSB effects cause about 8% difference in pion form factors at high momentum transfer.

The CSB effects in kaon form factors are roughly twice as large as in pions.

Parton distribution function CSB effects are smaller than electromagnetic form factor effects.

Abstract

Charge symmetry breaking (CSB) effects associated with the $u$ and $d$ quark mass difference are investigated in the quark distribution functions and spacelike electromagnetic form factors of the pion and kaon. We use a confining version of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, where CSB effects at the infrared scale associated with the model are driven by the dressed $u$ and $d$ quark mass ratio, which because of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking is much closer to unity than the associated current quark mass ratio. The pion and kaon are given as bound states of a dressed quark and a dressed antiquark governed by the Bethe-Salpeter equation, and exhibit the properties of Goldstone bosons, with a pion mass difference given by $m_{\pi^+}^2 - m_{\pi^0}^2 \propto (m_u - m_d)^2$ as demanded by dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. We find significant CSB effects for realistic current quark mass ratios ($m_u/m_d \sim 0.5$) in the quark flavor-sector electromagnetic form factors of both the pion and kaon. For example, the difference between the $u$ and $d$ quark contributions to the $\pi^+$ electromagnetic form factors is about 8\% at a momentum transfer of $Q^2 \simeq 10\,$GeV$^2$, while the analogous effect for the light quark sector form factors in the $K^+$ and $K^0$ is about twice as large. For the Parton distribution functions, we find CSB effects which are considerably smaller than those found in the electromagnetic form factors.