Chiral perturbation theory

Chiral perturbation theory has been used for great number of phenomenological analyses in low energy QCD as well as the lattice QCD analyses since the creation of the theory by Weinberg in 1979 followed by its consolidation by Gasser and Leutwyler in 1984 and 85. The theory is now the highly established one as the approach based on the effective field theory to search for Green function including quantum correlations in the frame of the systematic expansion technique using Lagrangian which includes all of the terms allowed by the symmetry. This review has been intended to describe how systematically physical quantities are calculated in the framework of the chiral symmetry. Consequently many of the various phenomenological analyses are not taken up here for which other reports are to be referred. Further views are foreseen to be developed based on the theory in addition to numbers of results reported up to the present. Finally π-π scattering is taken up to discuss to what energy scale the theory is available. (S. Funahashi)