Isospin Coherence and Final-State Scattering of Disoriented Chiral Condensate

Abstract

We examine the validity of the notion of the coherent state for pions and the quantum scattering effect in the final state of pion emission. When the number of particles is large, the effect caused by the small but finite mass difference between the neutral and charged pions can add up substantially in the quantum evolution of an initially coherent state. As a result, the states with quite different numbers of neutral or charged pions are essentially incoherent. The importance of the quantum scattering in the final-state isospin charge distribution of a disoriented chiral condensate (DCC) is investigated. We find that the scattering effect significantly reduces the spectacular Centauro and anti-Centauro events. The deformation of a charge distribution $dP/df$ predicted by the classical field theory is significant only for a DCC with the size of 10 fm or more.