Review of Lattice QCD Studies of Hadronic Vacuum Polarization Contribution to Muon $g−2$

Abstract

Lattice QCD (LQCD) studies for the hadron vacuum polarization (HVP) and its contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment (muon g-2) are reviewed. There currently exists more than 3-sigma deviations in the muon g-2 between the BNL experiment with 0.5 ppm precision and the Standard Model (SM) predictions, where the latter relies on the QCD dispersion relation for the HVP. The LQCD provides an independent crosscheck of the dispersive approaches and important indications for assessing the SM prediction with measurements at ongoing/forthcoming experiments at Fermilab/J-PARC (0.14/0.1 ppm precision). The LQCD has made significant progress, in particular, in the long distance and finite volume control, continuum extrapolations, and QED and strong isospin breaking (SIB) corrections. In the recently published papers, two LQCD estimates for the HVP muon g-2 are consistent with No New Physics while the other three are not. The tension solely originates to the light-quark connected contributions and indicates some under-estimated systematics in the large distance control. The strange and charm connected contributions as well as the disconnected contributions are consistent among all LQCD groups and determined precisely. The total error is at a few percent level. It is still premature by the LQCD to confirm or infirm the deviation between the experiments and the SM predictions. If the LQCD is combined with the dispersive method, the HVP muon g-2 is predicted with 0.4% uncertainty, which is close upon the target precision required by the Fermilab/J-PARC experiments. Continuous and considerable improvements are work in progress, and there are good prospects that the target precision will get achieved within the next few years.