Lifetime of Collective Isospin Rotations of a Quantum Meson Field

TL;DR

This paper calculates the damping time of collective isospin rotations in a quantum meson field, considering symmetry breaking effects, and finds these rotations last significantly longer than typical reaction times.

Contribution

It introduces a method to evaluate the damping time of collective isospin rotations accounting for symmetry breaking in a quantum meson field.

Findings

Damping times are around 100 fm/c.

Collective rotations last longer than typical reaction times.

Symmetry breaking influences the coupling between rotations and excitations.

Abstract

We calculate the lifetime of the collective isospin rotating solutions which have been found recently in the case a quantum N-component meson field with exact O(N) symmetry. For this purpose we take into account the small breaking of the O(N) symmetry associated to the non vanishing mass of the pion. This term induces a coupling between collective rotations and intrinsic meson excitations. We evaluate the associated damping time in the framework of linear response theory. We find damping times of the order of 100 fm/c, i.e. substantially longer than reaction times.