Meson-meson scattering in QCD-like theories

Abstract

We discuss meson-meson scattering at next-to-next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion for QCD-like theories with general n degenerate flavours for the cases with a complex, real and pseudo-real representation. i.e. with global symmetry and breaking pattern SU(n)_L × SU(n)_R → SU(n)_V, SU(2n) → SO(2n) and SU(2n) → Sp(2n). We obtain fully analytical expressions for all these cases. We discuss the general structure of the amplitude and the structure of the possible intermediate channels for all three cases. We derive the expressions for the lowest partial wave scattering length in each channel and present some representative numerical results. We also show various relations between the different cases in the limit of large n.