We propose an extension of the old, fairly successful, phenomenological prescription for adding spin-1 fields to the chiral Lagrangian of pseudoscalar mesons to the case where the Wess-Zumino term is present. This leads to the possibility of describing within the effective-Lagrangian framework a whole class of "unnatural-parity" hadronic reactions. In particular, we study the wellknown (pure hadronic) w + 3 a and (radiative) w-+@y processes, and find good agreement with experiment, comparable to that for any of the current-algebra "theorems." The construction of the Lagrangian is seen to involve subtle theoretical issues. We are led to examine in more detail Witten's "trial-and-error" gauging of the Wess-Zumino term and note that the Bardeen form of the anomaly seems more suitable than the left-right-symmetric form for constructing an effective model with phenomenological spin-1 fields.

We formulate a parity-invariant chiral Lagrangian which includes nonlinearly transforming vector mesons but no axial-vector mesons. It is gotten by a simple substitution from the Lagrangian involving a linearly transforming vector and axial-vector multiplet. This feature makes it easy to apply in the case when a gauged Wess-Zumino term is present, and we discuss the prototype anomalous strong decay w-+3n-.

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We extend the recent chiral model of Claudson, Wise, and Hall to include vector and axial-vector mesons as gauge bosons of an SU(3 )L X SU(3 IR chiral symmetry. The resulting baryon-numberviolating interaction Lagrangian contains an additional free parameter and modifies significantly the two-body branching ratios of protons. Without some experimental input, it is not possible to predict definite branching ratios even in the minimal SU(5) model of grand unification. Depending on the values of the effective parameters of the chiral Lagrangian, several interesting possibilities for the branching ratios arise, and they are discussed in some detail. We provide, within the framework of the model, general formulas for two-body decays of the proton for an arbitrary grand unified theory including both Higgs-and gauge-boson exchanges. We also discuss how the effective parameters in our chiral model can be related to quark and bag models, and thereby show how various models can be tested for their consistency with the chiral aspects of strong interactions.

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