Calculation of chiral-symmetry breaking and pion properties as a Goldstone boson

Abstract
A procedure for picking out the solution of the covariant Bethe-Salpeter equation corresponding to that Goldstone boson in a spontaneous-chiral-symmetry-breaking theory is described under very general assumptions. Physical quantities for chiral-symmetry breaking and the pion are calculated with this procedure taking into account gluon ladder exchange and a covariant chiral-symmetric generalization of the confinement potential. Satisfactory results are obtained with reasonable values of the parameters.