Symmetry in Hadrons and Nuclei

Dear Colleagues,

Hadrons and nuclei are many-body systems of strongly interacting constituents. Understanding their complicated dynamics is a challenging problem and symmetries play a central role in addressing it.

The spectrum and properties of hadrons are governed by Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD), the fundamental theory of strong interactions. The non-perturbative structure of QCD prevents accessing direct information on hadron properties (apart from lattice simulations). It is therefore essential to model QCD in this context. Reliable models must reflect the symmetries of QCD. In addition to the color gauge invariance, there are a number of (approximative) symmetries that play key roles in model building, most importantly, the chiral symmetry and its spontaneous breaking. Next to that is flavor SU(3) and its explicit breaking. Many models start from a non-relativistic setting, but relativistic invariance might be essential. For hadrons containing heavy quarks (charm, bottom), heavy quark effective theory plays a key role. Finally, AdS/CFT conjecture may favor certain aspects for model building.

On the lower energy scale of nuclei, which is considered as being composed of nucleons that interact by strong effective interaction, symmetries are a key element in characterizing the properties of the many-body system. The breaking of isospin conservation by  electromagnetic interaction, algebraic models for the phenomenology of collective excitations, which are based on approximate dynamical symmetries (compact groups), new many-body basis schemes for large-scale shell-model diagonalization (SU(3), SP(3), etc.), spontaneous breaking of rotational and space inversion symmetries and the ensuing consequences for nuclear spectra, exact-solvable group-theoretical models for testing approximations, and phase transitions in finite systems (renormalization group), have been in the focus of recent theoretical work.

For this Special Issue, we would like to invite original research and review articles that (i) focus on and highlight the incorporation of QCD symmetries in the investigation of hadron properties, that (ii) center around the before mentioned aspects of nuclear structure and reactions or that (iii) concentrate on bridging the hadronic and nuclear energy scales (e.g., chiral phase transition in hot dense nuclear matter or effective nucleon-nucleon interaction based chiral perturbation theory).

We are also interested in work concerning hadrons and nuclei as “laboratories” for testing fundamental symmetries, like CP, Majorana character of neutrinos, and SUSY.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Frauendorf
Prof. Dr. Herbert Weigel
Guest Editors

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