Hadronic symmetry breaking

The scalar dominance hypothesis, incorporating epsilon-epsilon' mixing, is applied to a large class of elastic, single particle matrix elements of the energy momentum trace operator. Both theoretical and phenomenological aspects of broken SU(3) coupling constant sum rules are considered. Assumptions underlying the conventional derivations of these sum rules are discussed. A phenomenological analysis of tensor meson decays is carried out. Four coupling constant sum rules are analyzed, and the ambiguity problem in defining empirical coupling constants is studied. Also considered are the phenomenological and theoretical aspects of single particle contributions to sum rules derived from commutation relations. A derivation of sum rules arising from an equal time axial-charge algebra evaluated between arbitrary single particle states is given. An analogous derivation of sum rules associated with the sigma operator is shown to be invalid. The difficulties associated with the Gellmann, Oakes and Renner model of the hadronic symmetry breaking are discussed, and a modified model due to Gellmann and Wilson is studied in detail. The Wigner-Eckart theorem and a modified low energy theorem for pions is employed to determine parameters of interest of the Gellmann-Wilson model