Scalar susceptibilities and four-quark condensates in the meson gas within Chiral Perturbation Theory

Abstract: We analyze the properties of four-quark condensates and scalar susceptibilities in the meson gas, within finite temperature Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT). The breaking of the factorization hypothesis does not allow for a finite four-quark condensate and its use as an order parameter, except in the chiral limit. This is rigorously obtained within ChPT and is therefore a model-independent result. Factorization only holds formally in the large $N_c$ limit and breaks up at finite temperature even in the chiral limit. Nevertheless, the factorization breaking terms are precisely those needed to yield a finite scalar susceptibility, deeply connected to chiral symmetry restoration. Actually, we provide the full result for the SU(3) quark condensate to NNLO in ChPT, thus extending previous results to include kaon and eta interactions. This allows to check the effect of those corrections compared to previous approaches and the uncertainties due to low-energy constants. We provide a detailed analysis of scalar susceptibilities in the SU(3) meson gas, including a comparison between the pure ChPT approach and the virial expansion, where the unitarization of pion scattering is crucial to achieve a more reliable prediction. Through the analysis of the interactions within this approach, we have found that the role of the $\sigma$ resonance is largely canceled with the scalar isospin two channel interaction, leaving the $\rho(770)$ as the main contribution. Special attention is paid to the evolution towards chiral restoration, as well as to the comparison with recent lattice analysis.