QCD susceptibilities, nuclear saturation and two-pion processes

We discuss the in-medium behaviour of the QCD scalar susceptibility and of the sigma mass in a chiral relativistic theory which incorporates the scalar response of the nucleon. We also study the many-body effects in the propagation of the scalar meson in the nuclear medium arising from its coupling to two-pion states. The same modification applies to the QCD scalar susceptibility. We conclude with the nuclear physics implications for the in-medium scalar nucleon–nucleon attraction.