The Casimir Energy in a Separable Potential

The Casimir energy is the first-order-in-\hbar correction to the energy of a time-independent field configuration in a quantum field theory. We study the Casimir energy in a toy model, where the classical field is replaced by a separable potential. In this model the exact answer is trivial to compute, making it a good place to examine subtleties of the problem. We construct two traditional representations of the Casimir energy, one from the Greens function, the other from the phase shifts, and apply them to this case. We show that the two representations are correct and equivalent in this model. We study the convergence of the Born approximation to the Casimir energy and relate our findings to computational issues that arise in more realistic models.Comment: 16 pages, 4 EPS figures, REVTeX using BoxedEPS macros; email to [email protected]

Investigation of a0-f0 mixing

We investigate the isospin-violating mixing of the light scalar mesons a0(980) and f0(980) within the unitarized chiral approach. Isospin-violating effects are considered to leading order in the quark mass differences and electromagnetism. In this approach both mesons are generated through meson-meson dynamics. Our results provide a description of the mixing phenomenon within a framework consistent with chiral symmetry and unitarity, where these resonances are not predominantly q q-bar states. Amongst the possible experimental signals, we discuss observable consequences for the reaction J/Psi -> phi pi0 eta in detail. In particular we demonstrate that the effect of a0-f0 mixing is by far the most important isospin-breaking effect in the resonance region and can indeed be extracted from experiment.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; discussion extended, title changed, version published in Phys. Rev.

Quark and Gluon Orbital Angular Momentum and Spin in Hard Processes

We suggest a method of constructing gauge invariant quark and gluon distributions that describe an abstract QCD observable and apply this method to analyze angular momentum of a hadron. In addition to the known quark and gluon polarized structure functions, we obtain gauge invariant distributions for quark and gluon orbital angular momenta, and consider some basic properties of these distributions and their moments.Comment: 16 pages, no figures, RevTe