Chiral nucleon dynamics

Abstract

These lectures give an introduction to baryon chiral perturbation theory. I show in detail how to construct the chiral effective pion-nucleon Lagrangian in the one loop approximation. Particular emphasis is put on the physics related to electromagnetic probes, as manifest in pion photo- and electroproduction, Compton scattering off nucleons and the electroweak form factors of the nucleon. Other topics discussed in some detail are the meaning of low-energy theorems, pion-nucleon scattering, the reaction $πN \to ππN$ and isospin violation in the pion-nucleon system. The chiral predictions are confronted with the existing data. Some remaining problems and new developments are outlined.

46 pp, LaTeX, uses epsf, lectures delivered at the 12th Annual Hampton University Graduate Studies (HUGS) at CEBAF, Newport News, June 2-20, 1997, to appear in the proceedings