Pion and Kaon valence structure in a confining NJL model

Dr. Javier Cobos Martínez, Departamento de Física, CINVESTAV-IPN


We present recent results for the in-medium valence-quark distributions of pion and kaon mesons in symmetric nuclear matter obtained by combining a confining Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model with the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model. The NJL is a chiral effective theory that simulates many of the key features of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and is therefore a useful tool to help explore and understand non perturbative phenomena in low energy QCD, while the QMC model is a model of nuclear matter that constrains many of the in-medium input quantities at saturation density required for the study. Before presenting our findings we provide basics features of these models. Our results indicate that the obtained valence quark distributions in vacuum, for both the pion and kaon, could reasonably describe the available experimental data over a wide range of Bjorken-x variable. On the other hand, the in-medium valence u-quark distribution in the pion at the experimental energy scale is found to be almost unchanged compared to the in-vacuum case. However, the in-medium to in-vacuum ratios of both the valence u-quark and valence s-quark distributions of the kaon meson increase with nuclear matter density, but show different x-dependence. Namely, the ratio for the valence u-quark distribution increases with x, while that for the valence s quark decreases with x. These features are enhanced at higher density regions.