Eta-prime bound states in nuclei and partial restoration of chiral symmetry

Abstract

We discuss the in-medium mass of the eta-prime meson under partial restoration of chiral symmetry. The chiral SU(3)\otimes SU(3) symmetry tells us the flavor singlet pseudoscalar meson eta-prime should degenerate with the octet $\eta$ meson in the SU(3) flavor limit, when chiral symmetry is restored in spite of U(1)A anomaly in the flavor single axial current. The suppression of the anomaly effect induces an order of 100 MeV reduction for the eta-prime mass at the saturation density without introducing a large absorption width. We show the formation spectrum of the eta-prime mesonic bound state in a nucleus as a possible observation of the eta-prime mass reduction.