In-medium QCD sum rules for D mesons: A projection method for higher order contributions

Abstract: D mesons serve as excellent probes of hot and/or dense strongly interacting matter. They can provide insight into the restoration of chiral symmetry. The chiral condensate as well as other chirally odd condensates, such as certain four-quark condensates, are linked to order parameters of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. Thus, the evaluation of these higher order condensate contributions in the framework of QCD sum rules is of high interest. We present a general method for projecting Lorentz indices of ground state expectation values providing a crucial step towards a comprehensive calculation of higher order corrections to the operator product expansion of hadrons, especially D mesons, in a strongly interacting medium.