Baryon Fields with U_L(3) \times U_R(3) Chiral Symmetry: Axial Currents of Nucleons and Hyperons

Abstract

We use the conventional F and D octet and decimet generator matrices to reformulate chiral properties of local (non-derivative) and one-derivative non-local fields of baryons consisting of three quarks with flavor SU(3) symmetry that were expressed in SU(3) tensor form in Ref. [12]. We show explicitly the chiral transformations of the [(6,3)\oplus(3,6)] chiral multiplet in the "SU(3) particle basis", for the first time to our knowledge, as well as those of the (3,\bar{3}) \oplus (\bar{3}, 3), (8,1) \oplus (1,8) multiplets, which have been recorded before in Refs. [4,5]. We derive the vector and axial-vector Noether currents, and show explicitly that their zeroth (charge-like) components close the SU_L(3) \times SU_R(3) chiral algebra. We use these results to study the effects of mixing of (three-quark) chiral multiplets on the axial current matrix elements of hyperons and nucleons. We show, in particular, that there is a strong correlation, indeed a definite relation between the flavor-singlet (i.e. the zeroth), the isovector (the third) and the eighth flavor component of the axial current, which is in decent agreement with the measured ones.