Origin of hadron mass from gravitational D-form factor and neutron star measurements

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method to determine the chiral invariant mass of hadrons using gravitational D-form factors, linking particle physics with neutron star observations and suggesting a significant chiral invariant component in nucleons.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to extract the chiral invariant mass from gravitational form factors, connecting low-energy QCD data with astrophysical constraints.

Findings

A sizable chiral invariant mass is necessary to match lattice QCD data.

Neutron star constraints support the presence of a significant chiral invariant component.

The method relies on the assumption of sigma meson dominance in gravitational form factors.

Abstract

Clarifying the origin of hadron mass is one of the fundamental problems in particle physics, relevant from hadronic scales to astrophysical observations. At low energies, this issue is reflected in the decomposition of the hadron mass into chiral-variant and -invariant components. In this letter, we propose a method to extract the chiral invariant mass from the gravitational $D$-form factor under the assumption of the lightest-sigma meson dominance. Focusing on the nucleon, we show that a sizable chiral invariant mass is required to reproduce lattice QCD data, consistent with neutron star constraints.