Chiral multiplets of excited mesons

Abstract

It is shown that experimental meson states with spins J=0,1,2,3 in the energy range 1.9 - 2.4 GeV obtained in recent partial wave analysis of proton-antiproton annihilation at LEAR remarkably confirm all predictions of chiral symmetry restoration. Classification of excited $\bar q q$ mesons according to the representations of chiral $U(2)_L \times U(2)_R$ group is performed. There are two important predictions of chiral symmetry restoration in highly excited mesons: (i) physical states must fill out approximately degenerate parity-chiral multiplets; (ii) some of the physical states with the given $I,J^{PC}$ are members of one parity-chiral multiplet, while the other states with the same $I,J^{PC}$ are members of the other parity-chiral multiplet. For example, while some of the excited $\rho(1,1^{--})$ states are systematically degenerate with $a_1(1,1^{++})$ states forming (0,1)+(1,0) chiral multiplets, the other excited $\rho(1,1^{--})$ states are degenerate with $h_1(0,1^{+-})$ states ((1/2,1/2) chiral multiplets). Hence, one of the predictions of chiral symmetry restoration is that the combined amount of $a_1(1,1^{++})$ and $h_1(0,1^{+-})$ states must coincide with the amount of $\rho(1,1^{--})$ states in the chirally restored regime. It is shown that the same rule applies (and experimentally confirmed) to many other meson states.