Chiral symmetry breaking, chiral partners, and the $K_1$ and $K^*$ in medium

Abstract

We clarify the concept of chiral partners. For a vector meson, the isospin-zero and hypercharge-zero state in the flavor octet mixes with the flavor singlet state. Since the flavor singlet vector meson does not have a chiral partner, the mixed $\omega$ and $\phi$ mesons will not have chiral partners. This means that even when chiral symmetry is restored, these mesons will not become degenerate with their corresponding parity partners. On the other hand, the $K_1$ and $K^*$ mesons are chiral partners, and both have widths smaller than 100 MeV. Therefore, we emphasize that studying these mesons in environments where chiral symmetry is restored is particularly important for understanding the effect of chiral symmetry restoration on chiral partners and their masses.