Pionic field and renormalization of the axial coupling constant in nuclei

The renormalization of the axial coupling constant in nuclei is related by PCAC to the exchange effects in the pionic vertex. Using an optical potential as a model for the pion source function, it is shown that in large nuclei the renormalization arises from the short range correlations. The analogy between this problem and that of an electric dipole inside a dielectric medium is pointed out.