QCD susceptibilities and nuclear-matter saturation in a relativistic chiral theory

Abstract : We investigate the evolutions with density of the QCD scalar susceptibility and of the sigma mass in a chiral relativistic theory of nuclear matter, in the mean-field approximation. In order to reach saturation we need to introduce the scalar response of the nucleons. The consequences are a quite mild density dependence of the sigma mass and the progressive decoupling of the quark density fluctuations from the nucleonic ones at large densities.