1999/07/21 by Iain W. Stewart, Stewart, Iain W.
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-ph/9907448
Ph.D. thesis, 170 pages
arxiv created 1999/07/21 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
Effective field theory techniques are used to describe the interaction of heavy hadrons in a model independent way. Predictability is obtained by exploiting the symmetries of QCD. Heavy hadron chiral perturbation theory is reviewed and used to describe D^* decays. The phenomenologically important D^*Dπ coupling is extracted from data working to first order in the chiral and heavy quark symmetry breaking parameters. A method is described for determining |Vub| from exclusive semileptonic B and D decays with 10% uncertainty. An effective field theory for two-nucleon systems is then discussed. The large S-wave scattering lengths necessitate expanding around a non-trivial fixed point. A detailed discussion of the interplay between renormalization and the power counting is given. In power counting pion interactions with nucleons it is useful to consider three classes of pion: potential, radiation, and soft. A power counting for massive radiation is developed. Finally, it is shown that the leading terms in the effective theory for nucleon-nucleon interactions are invariant under Wigner's SU(4) spin-isospin symmetry in the infinite scattering length limit.