Quark Mass Effects Research Articles

Role of heavy quarks in light hadron fragmentation

We investigate the role of heavy quarks in the production of light flavored hadrons and in the determination of the corresponding non perturbative hadronization probabilities. We define a general mass variable flavor number scheme for fragmentation functions that accounts for heavy quark mass effects, and perform a global QCD analysis to an up-to-date data set including very precise Belle and BaBar results. We show that the mass dependent picture provides a much more accurate and consistent description of data.

X(5568) as a tetraquark in a simple quark model

The S-wave eigenstates of tetraquarks of type with JP = 0+, 1+ and 2+ are studied within a simple quark model with chromomagnetic interaction and effective quark masses extracted from meson and baryon spectra. It is tempting to see if this spectrum can accommodate the new narrow structure X(5568), observed by the DØ Collaboration, but not confirmed by the LHCb Collaboration. If it exists, such a tetraquark is a system with four different flavors and its study can improve our understanding of multiquark systems. The presently calculated mass of X(5568) agrees quite well with the experimental value of the DØ Collaboration. Predictions are also made for the spectrum of the charmed partner . However we are aware of the difficulty of extracting effective quark masses, from mesons and baryons, to be used in multiquark systems.

Observables and open problems for NICA

The restoration of chiral symmetry in hot dense nuclear systems in competition with a transition to deconfined matter in central nucleus-nucleus collisions at NICA energies is a central problem of nuclear physics. To explore these transitions we study the production of hadrons in nucleus-nucleus collisions from 4 to 160A GeV within the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach that is extended to incorporate essentials aspects of chiral-symmetry restoration (CSR) in the hadronic sector (via the Schwinger mechanism) on top of the deconfinement phase transition as implemented in PHSD. The modeling of chiral-symmetry restoration in PHSD is driven by the pion-nucleon $\Sigma$ -term in the computation of the quark scalar condensate $\langle q \bar{q} \rangle$ that serves as an order parameter for CSR and is assumed to scale with the effective quark masses $ m_{s}$ and $ m_{q}$ . Furthermore, the nucleon scalar density $\rho_{s}$ , which also enters the computation of $\langle q \bar{q} \rangle$ , is evaluated within the nonlinear $\sigma$ - $ \omega$ model which is constrained by Dirac-Brueckner calculations and low-energy heavy-ion reactions. The essential impact of CSR is found in the Schwinger mechanism (for string decay) which fixes the ratio of strange to light quark production in the hadronic medium. We find that above $\sim 80$ A GeV the reaction dynamics of heavy nuclei is dominantly driven by partonic degrees-of-freedom such that traces of the chiral-symmetry restoration are hard to identify. Our studies support the conjecture of “quarkyonic matter” in heavy-ion collisions from about 5 to 40A GeV and suggest a microscopic explanation for the maximum in the $ K^{+}/\pi^{+}$ ratio at about 30A GeV which only shows up if in addition to CSR a deconfinement transition to partonic degrees-of-freedom is incorporated in the reaction dynamics.

The perturbative QCD gradient flow to three loops

The gradient flow in QCD is treated perturbatively through next-to-next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant. The evaluation of the relevant momentum and flow-time integrals is described, including various means of validation. For the vacuum expectation value of the action density, which turns out to be a useful quantity in lattice calculations, we find a very well-behaved perturbative series through NNLO. Quark mass effects are taken into account through NLO. The theoretical uncertainty due to renormalization scale variation is significantly reduced with respect to LO and NLO, as long as the flow time is smaller than about 0.1 fm.

Quark mass effect on axial charge dynamics

We studied effect of finite quark mass on the dynamics of axial charge using the D3/D7 model in holography. The mass term in axial anomaly equation affects both the fluctuation (generation) and dissipation of axial charge. We studied the dependence of the effect on quark mass and external magnetic field. For axial charge generation, we calculated the mass diffusion rate, which characterizes the helicity flipping rate. The rate is a non-monotonous function of mass and can be significantly enhanced by the magnetic field. The diffusive behavior is also related to a divergent susceptibility of axial charge. For axial charge dissipation, we found that in the long time limit, the mass term dissipates all the charge effectively generated by parallel electric and magnetic fields. The result is consistent with a relaxation time approximation. The rate of dissipation through mass term is a monotonous increasing function of both quark mass and magnetic field.

Quark and pion effective couplings from polarization effects

A flavor SU(2) effective model for pions and quarks is derived by considering polarization effects departing from the usual quark-quark effective interaction induced by dressed gluon exchange, i.e. a global color model for QCD. For that, the quark field is decomposed into a component that yields light mesons and the quark-antiquark condensate, being integrated out by means of the auxiliary field method, and another component which yields constituent quarks, which is basically a background quark field. Within a longwavelength and weak quark field expansion (or large quark effective mass expansion) of a quark determinant, the leading terms are found up to the second order in a zero order derivative expansion, by neglecting vector mesons that are considerably heavier than the pion. Pions are considered in the structureless limit and, besides the chiral invariant terms that reproduce previously derived expressions, symmetry breaking terms are also presented. The leading chiral quark-quark effective couplings are also found corresponding to a NJL and a vector-NJL couplings. All the resulting effective coupling constants and parameters are expressed in terms of the current and constituent quark masses and of the coupling $g$.

On the light quark mass effects in Higgs boson production in gluon fusion

Production of Higgs bosons at the LHC is affected by the contribution of light quarks, that mediate the gg → Hg transition. Although their impact is suppressed by small Yukawa couplings, it is enhanced by large logarithms of the ratio of the Higgs boson mass or its transverse momentum to light quark masses. We study the origin of this enhancement, focusing on the abelian corrections to gg → Hg amplitudes of the form $$ {\left({C}_F{\alpha}_s{\mathrm{\mathcal{L}}}^2\right)}^n $$ , where $$ \mathrm{\mathcal{L}}\in \left\{ \ln \left(s/{m}_b^2\right),\kern0.5em \ln \left({p}_{\perp}^2/{m}_b^2\right)\right\} $$ . We show how these non-Sudakov double logarithmic terms can be resummed to all orders in the strong coupling constant. Interestingly, we find that the transverse momentum dependence of these corrections is very weak due to a peculiar cancellation between different logarithmic terms. Although the abelian part of QCD corrections is not expected to be dominant, it can be used to estimate missing higher-order corrections to light quark contributions to Higgs boson production at the LHC.

High precision determination of the gluon fusion Higgs boson cross-section at the LHC

We present the most precise value for the Higgs boson cross-section in the gluon-fusion production mode at the LHC. Our result is based on a perturbative expansion through N3LO in QCD, in an effective theory where the top-quark is assumed to be infinitely heavy, while all other Standard Model quarks are massless. We combine this result with QCD corrections to the cross-section where all finite quark-mass effects are included exactly through NLO. In addition, electroweak corrections and the first corrections in the inverse mass of the top-quark are incorporated at three loops. We also investigate the effects of threshold resummation, both in the traditional QCD framework and following a SCET approach, which resums a class of π2 contributions to all orders. We assess the uncertainty of the cross-section from missing higher-order corrections due to both perturbative QCD effects beyond N3LO and unknown mixed QCD-electroweak effects. In addition, we determine the sensitivity of the cross-section to the choice of parton distribution function (PDF) sets and to the parametric uncertainty in the strong coupling constant and quark masses. For a Higgs mass of m H = 125 GeV and an LHC center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, our best prediction for the gluon fusion cross-section is $$ \sigma =48.58\;{\mathrm{pb}}_{-3.27\;\mathrm{p}\mathrm{b}}^{+2.22\;\mathrm{p}\mathrm{b}}\left(\mathrm{theory}\right)\pm 1.56\;\mathrm{p}\mathrm{b}\left(3.20\%\right)\left(\mathrm{P}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{F}+{\alpha}_s\right). $$

Heavy quarks in proton-nucleus collisions: The hybrid formalism

We explore the quark mass effects on inclusive hadron production in proton-nucleus collisions at high energies. We consider two processes. First, we compute the single inclusive cross-section for production of hadrons with open heavy flavour in the proton forward direction at leading order. Next, in the same kinematics, we calculate the heavy-quark contribution to single inclusive production of light or unidentified hadrons at next-to-leading-order. For both studies we exploit the hybrid formalism, that is the collinear factorisation on the proton side while high-density and high-energy effects are resummed on the side of the nucleus.

Hadron energy spectrum in polarized top-quark decays considering the effects of hadron and bottom quark masses

We present the analytical expressions for the next-to-leading order corrections to the partial decay width $t(\uparrow) \rightarrow bW^+$, followed by $b\rightarrow H_bX$, for nonzero b-quark mass ($m_b\neq 0$) in the fixed-flavor-number scheme (FFNs). To make the predictions for the energy distribution of outgoing hadrons $H_b$, as a function of the normalized $H_b$-energy fraction $x_H$, we apply the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme (GM-VFNs) in a specific helicity coordinate system where the polarization of top quark is evaluated relative to the b-quark momentum. We also study the effects of gluon fragmentation and finite hadron mass on the hadron energy spectrum so that hadron masses are responsible for the low-$x_H$ threshold. In order to describe both the b-quark and the gluon hadronizations in top decays we apply realistic and nonperturbative fragmentation functions extracted through a global fit to $e^+e^-$ annihilation data from CERN LEP1 and SLAC SLC by relying on their universality and scaling violations.

QMC approach based on the Bogoliubov independent quark model of the nucleon

The quark–meson coupling (QMC) model due to Guichon is formulated on the basis of the independent quark model of the nucleon proposed by Bogoliubov and is applied to the phenomenological descriptions of symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter. For symmetric matter, the model predicts, at saturation density, the incompressibility [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]MeV, the quark effective mass [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]MeV and the effective nucleon mass [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is the nucleon mass in vacuum. Neutron star masses above two solar masses are obtained.

Higgs boson production via gluon fusion: Soft-gluon resummation including mass effects

We analyze soft and collinear gluon resummation effects at the N$^3$LL level for Standard Model Higgs boson production via gluon fusion $gg\to H$ and the neutral scalar and pseudoscalar Higgs bosons of the minimal supersymmetric extension at the N$^3$LL and NNLL level, respectively. We introduce refinements in the treatment of quark mass effects and subleading collinear gluon effects within the resummation. Soft and collinear gluon resummation effects amount to up to about 5% beyond the fixed-order results for scalar and pseudoscalar Higgs boson production.

Chiral symmetry restoration versus deconfinement in heavy-ion collisions at high baryon density

We study the production of strange hadrons in nucleus-nucleus collisions from 4 to 160 A GeV within the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach that is extended to incorporate essentials aspects of chiral symmetry restoration (CSR) in the hadronic sector (via the Schwinger mechanism) on top of the deconfinement phase transition as implemented in PHSD. Especially the $K^+/\pi^+$ and the $(\Lambda+\Sigma^0)/\pi^-$ ratios in central Au+Au collisions are found to provide information on the relative importance of both transitions. The modelling of chiral symmetry restoration is driven by the pion-nucleon $\Sigma$-term in the computation of the quark scalar condensate $<q {\bar q}>$ that serves as an order parameter for CSR and also scales approximately with the effective quark masses $m_s$ and $m_q$. Furthermore, the nucleon scalar density $\rho_s$, which also enters the computation of $<q {\bar q}>$, is evaluated within the nonlinear $\sigma-\omega$ model which is constraint by Dirac-Brueckner calculations and low energy heavy-ion reactions. The Schwinger mechanism (for string decay) fixes the ratio of strange to light quark production in the hadronic medium. We find that above $\sim$80 A GeV the reaction dynamics of heavy nuclei is dominantly driven by partonic degrees-of-freedom such that traces of the chiral symmetry restoration are hard to identify. Our studies support the conjecture of 'quarkyonic matter' in heavy-ion collisions from about 5 to 40 A GeV and provide a microscopic explanation for the maximum in the $K^+/\pi^+$ ratio at about 30 A GeV which only shows up if a transition to partonic degrees-of-freedom is incorporated in the reaction dynamics and is discarded in the traditional hadron-string models.

Stable droplet formation of quark-gluon plasma in quark-hadron phase transition

In this contribution, a model is used to describe the droplet formation of quark- gluon plasma in quark-hadron phase transition with the effect of quark mass. The total free energy including curvature term with the effect of quark mass indicates the propensity of the system for the formation of stable droplet of quark-gluon plasma. It is found that there is a large positive barrier height enhancement in the free energy evolution from earlier results. Also, the results are in good agreement to predict the order of phase transition.

Towards parton distributions with fitted charm

Modern parton distribution function fits require an accurate treatment of heavy quark mass effects. In this contribution, we discuss how the FONLL general-mass variable flavour number scheme can be extended to allow for the possibility of a fitted charm PDF. We present a first estimate of the impact of a fitted charm contribution in the FONLL structure functions, and we discuss the development towards including a fitted charm PDF in the NNPDF framework.

Baryon properties from light-front holographic QCD

We investigate the properties of octet and decuplet baryons in a light-front holographic model. By taking into account the effect of nonvanishing quark mass, we obtain the modified light-front wave functions which are applicable at both low and high energy scales. We calculate the spectra, form factors, magnetic moments and electromagnetic radii of octet and decuplet baryons with the results all matching the experiments well. The axial charge, which describes the contribution of quark helicity to the proton spin in the quark-parton model at the high energy scale, is also consistent with the experimental value. Therefore, the light-front holographic method is successful in studying hadronic physics at all energy scales, and the nonzero quark mass is essential to understand the spin structures together with other low energy properties.

Charm in deep-inelastic scattering

We show how to extend systematically the FONLL scheme for inclusion of heavy quark mass effects in DIS to account for the possible effects of an intrinsic charm component in the nucleon. We show that when there is no intrinsic charm, FONLL is equivalent to S-ACOT to any order in perturbation theory, while when an intrinsic charm component is included FONLL is identical to ACOT, again to all orders in perturbation theory. We discuss in detail the inclusion of top and bottom quarks to construct a variable flavour number scheme, and give explicit expressions for the construction of the structure functions $F^c_2$, $F^c_L$ and $F^c_3$ to NNLO.

Higgs boson pair production: Top quark mass effects at NLO and NNLO

We compute next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the gluon-induced production cross section of Higgs boson pairs in the large top quark mass limit using the soft-virtual approximation. In the limit of infinitely-heavy top quark we confirm the results in the literature. We add two more expansion terms in the inverse top quark mass to the Mt→∞ result. Since the 1/Mt expansion converges poorly, we try to improve on it by factorizing the exact leading order cross section. We discuss two ways of doing that and conclude that the finite top quark mass effects shift the cross section at most by about 10% at next-to-leading order and by about 5% at next-to-next-to-leading order.

Magnetic moments ofJP=32+decuplet baryons using effective quark masses in a chiral constituent quark model

The magnetic moments of ${J}^{P}={\frac{3}{2}}^{+}$ decuplet baryons have been calculated in the chiral constituent quark model ($\ensuremath{\chi}\mathrm{CQM}$) with explicit results for the contribution coming from the valence quark polarizations, sea quark polarizations, and their orbital angular momentum. Since the ${J}^{P}={\frac{3}{2}}^{+}$ decuplet baryons have short lifetimes, the experimental information about them is limited. The $\ensuremath{\chi}\mathrm{CQM}$ has important implications for chiral symmetry breaking as well as SU(3) symmetry breaking since it works in the region between the QCD confinement scale and the chiral symmetry breaking scale. The predictions in the model not only give a satisfactory fit when compared with the experimental data but also show improvement over the other models. The effect of the confinement on quark masses has also been discussed in detail and the results of $\ensuremath{\chi}$CQM are found to improve further with the inclusion of effective quark masses.

Finite quark-mass effects in the NNLOPS POWHEG+MiNLO Higgs generator

We include finite top- and bottom-mass effects in the next-to-next-to-leading order parton shower (NNLOPS) event generator for inclusive Higgs boson production in gluon fusion based upon the POWHEG+MiNLO approach. Since fixed-order results for quark-mass effects only reach NLO accuracy, we add them to the NNLOPS generator at that accuracy. We explore uncertainties related to the unknown all-order logarithmic structure of bottom-mass effects by comparing the assumption of full exponentiation to no exponentiation at all. Phenomenological results showing the effects of finite quark-masses in the NNLOPS simulation are presented. These suggest that the aforementioned uncertainty is well contained within the envelope of plain renormalization and factorization scale uncertainties.