# New Mesons in the Chirally Symmetric Plasma

## I Introduction

The central purpose of the experimental program at RHIC is to produce a quark-gluon plasma. Despite a great deal of theoretical effort there is no clear experimental signature of the quark-gluon plasma that will distinguish it from the very complicated hadron phase. The Theory Workshop on Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions is intended both to refine previous ideas and to initiate discussion of new possibilities. It is in the latter spirit that this paper proposes investigation of a new experimental signal not previously considered. The present analysis of this signal still leaves unanswered questions that require further investigation by other theorists using other techniques.

In the QGP at temperature $`T`$, a typical state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ will have almost all the quark and antiquark modes with momentum less than $`T`$ occupied and considerably fewer modes occupied that have momentum larger than $`T`$. If a quark or antiquark is added to this background the result is $`b^{}|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ or $`d^{}|\mathrm{\Phi }`$. The new possibility is that removal of a quark gives a state $`b|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and the norm of this quark vacancy state is not small if the momentum is less than $`T`$. Similarly an antiquark vacancy is $`d|\mathrm{\Phi }`$. Chiral symmetry plays an essential role in this argument because the hole states are only important if $`b|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ has an energy higher than $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and this is only possible when the constituent quark mass is smaller than $`T`$. Thus approximate chiral symmetry is essential. This has two consequences: (1) Only $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks are candidates and (2) When chiral symmetry is badly broken, i.e. the hadron phase, there are no hole states.

The proof of hole states in Sec II is entirely non-perturbative. The end of Sec II contains references to perturbative results. Sec III focusses on experimental consequences of the hole states, the most important of which is the annihilation of a quark and hole into a virtual photon that subsequently converts to a lepton pair. If this quark and hole are bound into a meson, there will be a resonance in the dilepton invariant mass spectrum with new features.

## II Quark holes in the exact thermal propagator

### A Singularities of the exact propagator

It is remarkable that certain simple properties of the exact thermal quark propagator guarantee that the existence of low momentum hole states ($`k<T`$) in the chirally symmetric plasma. The inverse of the exact time-ordered thermal propagator must be of the form

$$\left[S(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})\right]^1=\gamma _0A(\omega ,k)\stackrel{}{\gamma }\widehat{k}B(\omega ,k)$$
(1)   
because of chiral invariance. The propagator itself is

$$S(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})=\frac{1}{2}\frac{\gamma _0\stackrel{}{\gamma }\widehat{k}}{AB}+\frac{1}{2}\frac{\gamma _0+\stackrel{}{\gamma }\widehat{k}}{A+B}.$$
(2)   
At $`k=0`$ the propagator cannot depend on the direction of $`\widehat{k}`$. Therefore $`B(\omega ,0)=0`$ and consequently $`S(\omega ,0)=\gamma _0/A(\omega ,0)`$. Now comes the one dynamical input, namely that at $`k=0`$ there is a pole in the propagator at the thermal mass of the quark. Lattice calculations of temporal quark propagators have measured this thermal mass . The thermal mass must have a negative imaginary part because of damping. By dimensional analysis, both the real and imaginary parts are proportional to temperature. Denote this complex mass by $`m_T`$. Then at $`k=0`$, $`A(\omega ,0)=(\omega m_T)a(\omega )`$ where $`a(\omega )`$ does not have a pole at $`\omega =m_T`$. At non-zero momentum $`A`$ has the structure $`A(\omega ,k)=(\omega m_T)a(\omega )+A_1(\omega ,k)`$ where $`A_1`$ is defined to vanish at $`k=0`$. The first denominator in (2) is $`AB=(\omega m_T)a(\omega )+A_1(\omega ,k)B(\omega ,k)`$. Since $`A_1`$ and $`B`$ both vanish at $`k=0`$, they are both small when $`k`$ is chosen sufficiently small. Therefore $`AB`$ will vanish at $`\omega =E_p`$, where $`E_p`$ is equal to $`m_T`$ plus a small, $`k`$-dependent correction:

$$E_pm_T+\left[A_1(m_T,k)+B(m_T,k)\right]/a(m_T)+\mathrm{}(k\mathrm{small})$$
(3)   
For small $`k`$ the other denominator $`A+B`$ vanishes at $`\omega =E_h`$ where $`E_h`$ is equal to $`m_T`$ plus a different small $`k`$ correction because $`B`$ occurs with opposite sign:

$$E_hm_T+\left[A_1(m_T,k)B(m_T,k)\right]/a(m_T)+\mathrm{}(k\mathrm{small})$$
(4)   
The first energy will be called the particle energy and the second the hole energy. The justification for these names will come in the next section. It is easy to see that the inclusion of a bare quark mass in the propagator spoils these arguments.

Knowing that $`AB`$ vanishes at $`\omega =E_p`$ and $`A+B`$ vanishes at $`\omega =E_h`$, one can show that PCT invariance requires $`AB`$ to also vanish at $`\omega =E_h`$ and $`A+B`$ to also vanish at $`\omega =E_p`$. The exact propagator therefore has four singularities and may be written

$$S(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})=\frac{1}{2}(\gamma _0\stackrel{}{\gamma }\widehat{k})\left[\frac{Z_p(\omega ,k)}{\omega E_p}+\frac{Z_h(\omega ,k)}{\omega +E_h}\right]+\frac{1}{2}(\gamma _0+\stackrel{}{\gamma }\widehat{k})\left[\frac{Z_p(\omega ,k)}{\omega +E_p}+\frac{Z_h(\omega ,k)}{\omega E_h}\right],$$
(5)   
where Im $`E_p<0`$ and Im $`E_h<0`$. It is difficult to deduce much about the numerator functions $`Z_p`$ and $`Z_h`$. They are very complicated functions of $`\omega `$ and contain all the branch cuts and any other singularities of the exact propagator. The $`\pm \omega `$ in the arguments of these functions are determined by PCT. From the previous argument we know that at zero momentum the residues of the two kinds of poles are equal: $`Z_p(m_T,0)=Z_h(m_T,0)`$.

### B Operator meaning of the hole singularities

The existence of a pole at a $`m_T`$ in the zero-momentum propagator led to the distinct poles at $`\pm E_p`$ and $`\pm E_h`$ in (2). The next task is to figure out what these poles mean in terms of quark creation and destruction operators. At time t=0 the exact field operator for massless quarks in a finite volume $`V`$ can be expanded as

$$\psi (0,\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}\left(u_\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},s)b_{\stackrel{}{k},s}e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}+v_\alpha (\stackrel{}{k},s)d_{\stackrel{}{k},s}^{}e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}\right).$$
(6)   
The field operator at any other time can be expressed as $`\psi (t,\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{exp}(iHt)\psi (0,\stackrel{}{x})\mathrm{exp}(iHt)`$. The exact time-ordered thermal propagator may be written in terms of two resolvents:

$$S(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})=\frac{1}{2}\left(\gamma _0\stackrel{}{\gamma }\widehat{k}\right)\left[R_p(\omega ,k)R_h(\omega ,k)\right]+\frac{1}{2}\left(\gamma _0+\stackrel{}{\gamma }\widehat{k}\right)\left(R_p(\omega ,k)+R_h(\omega ,k)\right)$$
(7)   
$$R_p(\omega ,k)b_\stackrel{}{k}\frac{1}{\omega +iϵ\widehat{H}}b_\stackrel{}{k}^{}R_h(\omega ,k)b_\stackrel{}{k}^{}\frac{1}{\omega +iϵ\widehat{H}}b_\stackrel{}{k},$$
(8)   
where PCT was used to express antiquark resolvents in terms of quark resolvents. For compactness I have used the thermo field dynamics notation $`\widehat{H}=H\stackrel{~}{H}`$ and the brackets denote the expectation value in the TFD ground state . Both resolvents (8) are analytic for Im $`\omega >0`$ and have branch cuts along the real $`\omega `$ axis.

The pole in (5) at $`\omega =E_p`$ is in the lower half $`\omega `$ plane and has a characteristic spinor structure. Comparison with (7) shows that it must come from $`R_p(\omega ,k)`$ since $`R_h(\omega )`$ is analytic for Im $`\omega <0`$. To understand what this means, recall that each state state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in the thermal average is an energy eigenstate. The existence of the pole at $`E_p`$ means roughly that the state $`b^{}|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ has an energy that is higher by $`E_p`$. (More precisely, $`b^{}|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is not an energy eigenstate but it has a non-zero overlap with an energy eigenstate that is higher by $`E_p`$.)

The new feature in (5) is the pole at $`\omega =E_h`$ in the lower-half $`\omega `$ plane with the spinor structure $`\gamma _0+\stackrel{}{\gamma }\widehat{k}`$. Comparison with (7) shows that it can only come from $`R_h(\omega ,k)`$ since $`R_p(\omega )`$ is analytic for Im $`\omega <0`$. Therefore the state $`b|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ with one fewer particle than $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ nevertheless has an energy that is higher by $`E_h`$. This state is called a quark hole or quark vacancy.

The residue of the poles requires evaluating the numerator functions $`Z(\omega ,k)`$ in (5) at the energy of the pole. At $`k=0`$ the holes have the same residue as the particles: $`Z_h(m_T,0)=Z_p(m_T,0)`$. However at $`k>T`$ the residue of the hole $`Z_h(E_h,k)`$ becomes very small. This means that high momentum hole states decouple from the field operator $`\psi (x)`$. It does not mean that high momentum hole states disappear, only that $`b|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ becomes a poor description. Since gluons couple to color currents $`\overline{\psi }\lambda ^a\gamma ^\mu \psi `$ and photons couple to the electromagnetic current $`\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu \psi `$, hole states with high momentum propagate have very small coupling to gluons and photons.

### C Perturbative results on holes

Nothing in the argument presented above is perturbative. However the observation that the thermal quark propagator contains two kinds of poles, one for quarks and one for holes, did arise in one-loop perturbative calculations . The quark and hole states have been constructed to one-loop order in . The dependence of the spectrum upon chiral symmetry has been studied in one-loop order . The quark and hole states have been used in calculations of dilepton production  and of Higgs damping rates .

## III New mesons using hole states

### A Binding of quarks and holes

It is easy to envision how new mesons can arise in the chirally symmetric phase though it is difficult to prove their existence. If $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a color singlet state in the thermal ensemble then $`b_k^{}|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a color triplet with an energy higher by $`E_p(k)`$ after all the interactions between the $`b^{}`$ and the plasma are included. Similarly $`b_k^{}|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a color antitriplet with an energy higher by $`E_h(k^{})`$ when all its interactions are included. A color singlet state $`b_k^{}b_k^{}|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ should have an energy of approximately $`E_p(k)+E_h(k^{})`$ minus the color binding energy.

In the chirally symmetric phase the color force is not confining but it is still attractive in color singlet channels. There are two different contributions to this binding: gluon exchange and instantons. The first may be thought of in terms of a Bethe-Salpeter equation with a kernel for the exchanged gluons. Although the numerators of the quark propagator (5) have no mass term, it is the denominators that control the kinematics. This leads to differential operators that are approximately Klein-Gordon $`^2+m_T^2`$, with $`m_T`$ 150 MeV, acting on the coordinates of the Bethe-Salpeter wave function. This is analogous to the positronium problem and even non-relativistic analysis may be useful.

A second source of color binding comes from non-trivial topologies, specifically the random instanton liquid advocated by Shuryak . Here because of chiral symmetry the field operator satifies the equation $`\gamma _\mu D^\mu \psi =0`$ with no chiral-symmetry breaking mass term. When $`A^\mu `$ is an instanton configuration the classical solutions of this produce a strong attraction in mesonic channels in which the fermions have the opposite chirality, e.g. attractive in the scalar channel but not in the vector channel. The lattice calculations of the Shuryak group confirm this picture. Note that although the thermal mass of the quarks is present, it is irrelevant for the instanton attraction.

### B Quantum numbers of $`QQ_h`$ mesons

To determine the possible quantum numbers of the new mesons it is useful to examine the bilinear operators $`J_\mathrm{\Gamma }^a(x)=\overline{\psi }_i(x)t_{ij}^a\mathrm{\Gamma }\psi _j(x)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is one of the sixteen Dirac matrices and $`t^a`$ are one of the four $`2\times 2`$ matrices for isospin 0 or 1. The choice of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ determines the value of $`J`$ for the operator and its behavior under parity and charge conjugation. To determine the quark operator content of each $`J_\mathrm{\Gamma }^a`$, we again use the expansion (6) of the exact field operator. Integrating $`J_\mathrm{\Gamma }^a(0,\stackrel{}{x})`$ over three dimensional space then gives an operator describing a meson at rest.

For example, if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=i\gamma _5`$ then the result is an operator for pseudoscalar $`\pi ^a`$ and $`\sigma `$ mesons:

$$d^3x\overline{\psi }_i(\stackrel{}{x})t_{ij}^ai\gamma _5\psi _j(\stackrel{}{x})=2i\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}\left[b_i^{}(\stackrel{}{k},s)t_{ij}^ad_j^{}(\stackrel{}{k},s)d_i(\stackrel{}{k},s)t_{ij}^ab_j(\stackrel{}{k},s)\right].$$
(9)   
This operator has the expected structure: $`b^{}d^{}`$ for the creation of a quark-antiquark pair plus its PCT conjugate $`db`$. The pair has no orbital angular momentum, L=0, and no spin, S=0. Since the total angular momentum is J=0, it correctly describes the $`\pi `$ and $`\eta `$ mesons as $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ state of quark and antiquark.

As an example of a meson operator that gives a quark paired with a hole, let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\gamma _0`$. Then

$$d^3x\overline{\psi }_i(\stackrel{}{x})t_{ij}^a\gamma _0\psi _j(\stackrel{}{x})=2\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}\left[b_i^{}(\stackrel{}{k},s)t_{ij}^ab_j(\stackrel{}{k},s)+d_i(\stackrel{}{k},s)t_{ij}^ad_j^{}(\stackrel{}{k},s)\right].$$
(10)   
If this operator acts on a typical state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ containing many quarks and antiquarks it can create a new kind of meson at rest, $`b^{}(\stackrel{}{k})b(\stackrel{}{k})|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ (or the PCT conjugate) with an energy approximately $`E_p+E_h`$ minus the binding energy.

The chart below tabulates the quantum numbers of the possible mesons for all 16 Dirac matrices. The choice of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ determines the value of $`J^{PC}`$ for that operator. For the last four operators in the chart, $`J_\mathrm{\Gamma }^a`$ contains both ordinary meson combinations $`b^{}d^{}`$ and new combinations $`b^{}b`$.

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\mathrm{\Gamma }& J^{PC}& Q\overline{Q}\mathrm{MESONS}& QQ_h\mathrm{MESONS}\\ \\ i\gamma _5& 0^+& {}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}:\pi \mathrm{and}\eta & \\ & & & \\ 1& 0^{++}& {}_{}{}^{3}P_{0}^{}:a_0\mathrm{and}\sigma & \\ \\ \gamma _0& 0^+& & {}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}:\mathrm{I}=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}\\ & & & \\ \gamma _5\gamma _0& 0^+& & {}_{}{}^{3}P_{0}^{}:\mathrm{I}=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}\\ \\ \stackrel{}{\gamma }& 1^{}& {}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}:\rho \mathrm{and}\omega & {}_{}{}^{1}P_{1}^{}:\mathrm{I}=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}\\ & & & \\ \gamma _5\stackrel{}{\gamma }& 1^{++}& {}_{}{}^{3}P_{1}^{}:a_1\mathrm{and}f_1& {}_{}{}^{3}D_{1}^{}:\mathrm{I}=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}\\ \\ \gamma _5\gamma _0\stackrel{}{\gamma }& 1^+& {}_{}{}^{1}P_{1}^{}:b_1\mathrm{and}h_1& {}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}:\mathrm{I}=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}\\ & & & \\ \gamma _0\stackrel{}{\gamma }& 1^{}& {}_{}{}^{3}D_{1}^{}:\rho ^{}\mathrm{and}\omega ^{}& {}_{}{}^{3}P_{1}^{}:\mathrm{I}=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}\end{array}$$
(11)   
The lightest $`Q\overline{Q}`$ mesons are at the top of the chart; the heaviest at the bottom. Isotriplets are listed before isosinglets. The arrows in the chart indicate the opposite parity states that are degenerate in mass because of SU(2)<sub>A</sub> symmetry. The SU(2)<sub>A</sub> multiplets have various dimensions: $`\pi +\sigma `$ is four dimensional; $`\rho +a_1`$ is six dimensional; $`\omega `$ is a chiral singlet. The $`Q\overline{Q}`$ mesons automatically have $`P=(1)^{L+1}`$ and $`C=(1)^{L+S}`$. The $`QQ_h`$ mesons in the second column have $`P=(1)^L`$ but $`C`$ is not determined by the values of $`L`$ and $`S`$.

### C Decays and experimental signals of $`QQ_h`$ mesons

In the chirally invariant phase not all the $`Q\overline{Q}`$ and $`QQ_h`$ mesons will be bound. The combinations that are bound into isosinglets have a Zweig suppressed decay into two or more gluons depending upon $`J^{PC}`$. Their decay into photons might be detectable. The isotriplets cannot decay into gluons but they could break up by collisions with free quarks in the plasma. Most importantly, the holes can only exist in the chirally invariant phase. Thus in a RHIC collision they can exist for a maximum of 5 or 10 fm/c, corresponding to a minimum width of 20 MeV to 40 MeV.

In the random instanton liquid model  the combinations that bind are those whose constituents have opposite chirality, viz $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1,i\gamma _5,\gamma _5\gamma _0\stackrel{}{\gamma },\gamma _0\stackrel{}{\gamma }`$. The last two of these would give $`QQ_h`$ vector mesons with $`J^{PC}=1^+`$ and $`1^{}`$. The latter would produce a characteristic dilepton pair signal at its mass. It seems quite unlikely that this thermal meson mass would coincide with that of any known sources of dileptons.

The calculation of meson binding and of decay depends crucially on the residue function $`Z_h(E_h,k)`$. As mentioned earlier it is the same as the quark residue $`k=0`$ but at $`k>T`$ it is negligible. This complication helps distinguish the $`QQ_h`$ dilepton signal from background. All dilepton rates fall exponentially like $`\mathrm{exp}(E/T)`$ where $`E`$ is the energy of the lepton pair. For normal sources such as $`\rho `$ and $`\omega `$, the prefactor of this exponential is almost independent of $`E`$. For dileptons produced by $`QQ_h`$ mesons the prefactor will fall rapidly with the dilepton energy $`E`$ and be negligible at $`ET`$. Thus in a plot of dilepton invariant mass that includes only low energy pairs such as $`E<`$ 50 MeV or $`E<100`$ MeV, the $`QQ_h`$ signal is most likely to stand out.

###### Acknowledgements.

It is pleasure to thank Sid Kahana and the entire BNL theory group for organizing and hosting a very stimulating workshop. This work was supported in part by National Science Foundation grants PHY-9213734 and PHY-9630149.