Light Quark Flavors Research Articles

Chiral Perturbation Theory for Three-Flavour Lattice QCD with Isospin Splitting

An important tool for the analysis of results of numerical simulations of lattice QCD is chiral perturbation theory. In the Wilson chiral perturbation theory the effects of the finite lattice spacingaare taken into account. In recent years the effects of isospin splitting on the masses of hadrons have been investigated in the Monte Carlo simulations. Correspondingly, in this paper we derive the expansions of the masses of the pseudoscalar mesons in chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order for twisted mass lattice QCD with three light quark flavours, taking the mass difference between the up- and downquarks into account. The results include terms up to ordersmq2in the quark masses,Δm2in the mass splitting between up- and downquarks, anda2in the lattice spacing, respectively.

Two nucleon systems atmπ∼450 MeVfrom lattice QCD

Nucleon-nucleon systems are studied with lattice quantum chromodynamics at a pion mass of $m_\pi\sim 450~{\rm MeV}$ in three spatial volumes using $n_f=2+1$ flavors of light quarks. At the quark masses employed in this work, the deuteron binding energy is calculated to be $B_d = 14.4^{+3.2}_{-2.6} ~{\rm MeV}$, while the dineutron is bound by $B_{nn} = 12.5^{+3.0}_{-5.0}~{\rm MeV}$. Over the range of energies that are studied, the S-wave scattering phase shifts calculated in the 1S0 and 3S1-3D1 channels are found to be similar to those in nature, and indicate repulsive short-range components of the interactions, consistent with phenomenological nucleon-nucleon interactions. In both channels, the phase shifts are determined at three energies that lie within the radius of convergence of the effective range expansion, allowing for constraints to be placed on the inverse scattering lengths and effective ranges. The extracted phase shifts allow for matching to nuclear effective field theories, from which low energy counterterms are extracted and issues of convergence are investigated. As part of the analysis, a detailed investigation of the single hadron sector is performed, enabling a precise determination of the violation of the Gell-Mann--Okubo mass relation. [An Erratum to the published version is included as an appendix. It details the impact of an error discovered in 2020 and corrects typographical errors.]

QCD Phase Diagram and the Constant Mass Approximation

Dynamical generation of quark masses in the infrared region of QCD plays an important role to understand the peculiar nature of the physics of hadrons. As it is known, the solution of QCD gap equation for the quark mass function is flat for low momentum, but smoothly evolves to the perturbative behavior at high momentum. In this work, we use an effective truncation of QCD gap equation valid up to 1 GeV, and implement it at finite temperature and chemical potential to understand the QCD phase diagram for chiral symmetry breaking-chiral symmetry restoration, and confinement-deconfinement phase transitions from the Schwinger-Dysin equations point of view. Our effective kernel contains a gluon dressing function with two light quark flavors Nf = 2, with current quark mass 0.0035 GeV. An effective coupling, adjusted to reproduce the behavior of the chiral condensate at finite T complements our truncation. We find the critical end point of the phase diagram located at the temperature TE = 0.1245 GeV and the baryonic chemical potential μEB = 0.211 GeV.

Deconfinement transition at high isospin chemical potential and low temperature

We consider QCD with two degenerate flavors of light quarks (up and down) at asymptotically high isospin (μI) with zero baryon chemical potential (μB) and calculate for the first time a quantitative expression for the critical temperature of the deconfinement transition in this regime. At high isospin chemical potential and sufficiently low temperatures this theory becomes equivalent to a pure Yang–Mills theory and accordingly has a first order deconfinement phase transition. Although this was conjectured in a seminal paper by Son and Stephanov in the year 2001, the critical temperature of this deconfinement phase transition was not computed. This paper computes the energy scale associated with this transition as a function of the chemical potential μI by relating the parameters of the equivalent Yang–Mills theory to those of the underlying theory. We also relate the equation of state in one strongly interacting regime of QCD namely at finite isospin density to that in pure Yang–Mills, with the latter being amenable to straightforward numerical calculation. Our results for the critical temperature of deconfinement transition can be compared with future lattice calculations.

Phase transition in finite density and temperature lattice QCD**Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (11335001, 11105153, 11405178), Projects of International Cooperation and Exchanges NSFC (11261130311)

We investigate the behavior of the chiral condensate in lattice QCD at finite temperature and finite chemical potential. The study was done using two flavors of light quarks and with a series of β and ma at the lattice size 24 × 122 × 6. The calculation was done in the Taylor expansion formalism. We are able to calculate the first and second order derivatives of in both isoscalar and isovector channels. With the first derivatives being small, we find that the second derivatives are sizable close to the phase transition and that the magnitude of decreases under the influence of finite chemical potential in both channels.

Matrix elements ofΔB=0operators in heavy hadron chiral perturbation theory

We study the light-quark mass and spatial volume dependence of the matrix elements of $\Delta B=0$ four-quark operators relevant for the determination of $V_{ub}$ and the lifetime ratios of single-$b$ hadrons. To this end, one-loop diagrams are computed in the framework of heavy hadron chiral perturbation theory with partially quenched formalism for three light-quark flavors in the isospin limit; flavor-connected and -disconnected diagrams are carefully analyzed. These calculations include the leading light-quark flavor and heavy-quark spin symmetry breaking effects in the heavy hadron spectrum. Our results can be used in the chiral extrapolation of lattice calculations of the matrix elements to the physical light-quark masses and to infinite volume. To provide insight on such chiral extrapolation, we evaluate the one-loop contributions to the matrix elements containing external $B_d$, $B_s$ mesons and $\Lambda_b$ baryon in the QCD limit, where sea and valence quark masses become equal. In particular, we find that the matrix elements of the $\lambda_3$ flavor-octet operators with external $B_d$ meson receive the contributions solely from connected diagrams in which current lattice techniques are capable of precise determination of the matrix elements. Finite volume effects are at most a few percent for typical lattice sizes and pion masses.

Search for pair-produced resonances decaying to jet pairs in proton–proton collisions at [formula omitted

Results are reported of a general search for pair production of heavy resonances decaying to pairs of hadronic jets in events with at least four jets. The study is based on up to 19.4 fb−1 of integrated luminosity from proton–proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC. Limits are determined on the production of scalar top quarks (top squarks) in the framework of R-parity violating supersymmetry and on the production of color-octet vector bosons (colorons). First limits at the LHC are placed on top squark production for two scenarios. The first assumes decay to a bottom quark and a light-flavor quark and is excluded for masses between 200 and 385 GeV, and the second assumes decay to a pair of light-flavor quarks and is excluded for masses between 200 and 350 GeV at 95% confidence level. Previous limits on colorons decaying to light-flavor quarks are extended to exclude masses from 200 to 835 GeV.

Light fermionic NNLO QCD corrections to top-antitop production in the quark-antiquark channel

We present the NNLO corrections to top pair production in the quark-antiquark channel proportional to the number of light quark flavors $N_l$. While the double real corrections were derived previously, here we compute the real-virtual and virtual-virtual contributions in this partonic channel. Using the antenna subtraction formalism, we show that the subtraction terms correctly approximate the real-virtual contributions in all their infrared limits. Combined with the integrated forms of the double real and real-virtual subtraction terms, we show analytically that the explicit infrared poles cancel at the real-virtual and virtual-virtual levels respectively, thereby demonstrating the validity of the massive extension of the NNLO antenna formalism. These NNLO corrections are implemented in a Monte Carlo parton level generator providing full kinematical information on an event-by event basis. With this program, NNLO differential distributions in the form of binned histograms are obtained and presented here.

Fate of charmed mesons near chiral symmetry restoration in hot matter

Chiral thermodynamics of charmed mesons is formulated at finite temperature within a $2+1+1$-flavored effective Lagrangian incorporating heavy quark symmetry. The charmed-meson mean fields act as an extra source which breaks the chiral symmetry explicitly. This leads to effective interactions between the light and heavy-light mesons, which intrinsically depend on temperature. Effective masses of the scalar and pseudoscalar charmed-mesons tend to approach each other as increasing temperature, so that the splitting between the chiral partners is reduced. These chiral splittings are shown to be less sensitive to the light-quark flavors, attributed to the underlying heavy quark symmetry. Consequently, chiral symmetry restoration is more manifest for the strange charmed-mesons than for the strange light mesons. The effective masses are also compared with the results in the one-loop chiral perturbation theory. A substantial difference is found at a relatively low temperature, $T \sim f_\pi$.

Quark number fluctuations at finite temperature and finite chemical potential via the Dyson-Schwinger equation approach

We investigate the quark number fluctuations up to the fourth order in the matter composed of two light flavor quarks with isospin symmetry and at finite temperature and finite chemical potential using the Dyson-Schwinger equation approach of QCD. In order to solve the quark gap equation, we approximate the dressed quark-gluon vertex with the bare one and adopt both the Marris-Tandy (MT) model and the infrared constant (Qin-Chang) model for the dressed gluon propagator. Our results indicate that the second, third, and forth order fluctuations of net quark number all diverge at the critical end point (CEP). Around the CEP, the second order fluctuation possesses obvious pump while the third and fourth order ones exhibit distinct wiggles between positive and negative. For the MT model and the Qin-Chang model, we give the pseudo-critical temperature at zero quark chemical potential as $T_{c}=146$ MeV and $150$ MeV, and locate the CEP at $({\mu_{E}^{q}}, {T_{E}^{}}) = (120, 124)$ MeV and $(124,129)$ MeV, respectively. In addition, our results manifest that the fluctuations are insensitive to the details of the model, but the location of the CEP shifts to low chemical potential and high temperature as the confinement length scale increases.

Baryon spectrum withNf=2+1+1twisted mass fermions

The masses of the low-lying baryons are evaluated using a total of ten ensembles of dynamical twisted mass fermion gauge configurations. The simulations are performed using two degenerate flavors of light quarks, and a strange and a charm quark fixed to approximately their physical values. The light sea quarks correspond to pseudo scalar masses in the range of about 210 to 430 MeV. We use the Iwasaki improved gluonic action at three values of the coupling constant corresponding to lattice spacing $a=0.094$, 0.082 and 0.065 fm determined from the nucleon mass. We check for both finite volume and cutoff effects on the baryon masses. We examine the issue of isospin symmetry breaking for the octet and decuplet baryons and its dependence on the lattice spacing. We show that in the continuum limit isospin breaking is consistent with zero, as expected. We performed a chiral extrapolation of the forty baryon masses using SU(2) $\ensuremath{\chi}\mathrm{PT}$. After taking the continuum limit and extrapolating to the physical pion mass our results are in good agreement with experiment. We provide predictions for the mass of the doubly charmed ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Xi}}}_{cc}^{*}$, as well as of the doubly and triply charmed $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}$s that have not yet been determined experimentally.

Chiral dynamics in the low-temperature phase of QCD

We investigate the low-temperature phase of QCD and the crossover region with two light flavors of quarks. The chiral expansion around the point $(T,m=0)$ in the temperature vs. quark-mass plane indicates that a sharp real-time excitation exists with the quantum numbers of the pion. An exact sum rule is derived for the thermal modification of the spectral function associated with the axial charge density; the (dominant) pion pole contribution obeys the sum rule. We determine the two parameters of the pion dispersion relation using lattice QCD simulations and test the applicability of the chiral expansion. The time-dependent correlators are also analyzed using the Maximum Entropy Method, yielding consistent results. Finally, we test the predictions of the chiral expansion around the point $(T=0,m=0)$ for the temperature dependence of static observables.

SUSY simplified models at 14, 33, and 100 TeV proton colliders

Results are presented for a variety of SUSY Simplified Models at the 14 TeV LHC as well as a 33 and 100 TeV proton collider. Our focus is on models whose signals are driven by colored production. We present projections of the upper limit and discovery reach in the gluino-neutralino (for both light and heavy flavor decays), squark-neutralino, and gluino-squark Simplified Model planes. Depending on the model a jets + $ E_T^{\mathrm{miss}} $ , mono-jet, or same-sign di-lepton search is applied. The impact of pileup is explored. This study utilizes the Snowmass backgrounds and combined detector. Assuming 3000 fb−1 of integrated luminosity, a gluino that decays to light flavor quarks can be discovered below 2.3 TeV at the 14 TeV LHC and below 11 TeV at a 100 TeV machine.

Antiscreening of the Ampère force in QED and QCD plasmas

The static forces between electric charges and currents are modified at the loop level by the presence of a plasma. While electric charges are screened, currents are not. The effective coupling constant at long distances is enhanced in both cases as compared to the vacuum, and by different amounts, a clear sign that Lorentz symmetry is broken. We investigate these effects quantitatively, first in a QED plasma and second using nonperturbative simulations of QCD with two light degenerate flavors of quarks.

Baryon magnetic moments in large-Ncchiral perturbation theory: Effects of the decuplet-octet mass difference and flavor symmetry breaking

The magnetic and transition magnetic moments of the ground-state baryons are computed in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory in the large-${N}_{c}$ limit, where ${N}_{c}$ is the number of colors. SU(3) symmetry breaking is systematically studied twofold: On the one hand, one-loop nonanalytic corrections of orders ${m}_{q}^{1/2}$ and ${m}_{q}\text{ }\mathrm{ln}\text{ }{m}_{q}$ are included, with contributions of baryon intermediate states from both flavor octet and flavor decuplet multiplets, assuming degeneracy between baryon states within a given flavor multiplet but nondegeneracy between baryons of different multiplets. On the other hand, perturbative SU(3) symmetry breaking is also analyzed by including all relevant leading-order operators that explicitly break SU(3) at linear order. The resultant expressions are compared with the available experimental data and with other determinations in the context of conventional heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory for three flavors of light quarks and at the physical value ${N}_{c}=3$. The agreement reached is quite impressive.

Melting of P wave bottomonium states in the quark-gluon plasma from lattice NRQCD

We study the fate of P wave bottomonium states in the quark-gluon plasma, using a spectral function analysis of euclidean lattice correlators. The correlators are obtained from lattice QCD simulations with two light quark flavours on highly anisotropic lattices, treating the bottom quark nonrelativistically. We find clear indications of melting immediately after the deconfinement transition.

Production ofKS0,K*±(892)andϕ0(1020)in minimum bias events andKS0andΛ0in jets inpp¯collisions ats=1.96 TeV

We report measurements of the inclusive transverse momentum pT distribution of centrally produced kshort, kstar(892), and phi(1020) mesons up to pT = 10 GeV/c in minimum-bias events, and kshort and lambda particles up to pT = 20 GeV/c in jets with transverse energy between 25 GeV and 160 GeV in pbar p collisions. The data were taken with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. We find that as pT increases, the pT slopes of the three mesons (kshort, kstar, and phi) are similar, and the ratio of lambda to kshort as a function of pT in minimum-bias events becomes similar to the fairly constant ratio in jets at pT ~ 5 GeV/c. This suggests that the particles with pT >~ 5 GeV/c in minimum-bias events are from soft jets, and that the pT slope of particles in jets is insensitive to light quark flavor (u, d, or s) and to the number of valence quarks. We also find that for pT <~ 4 GeV relatively more lambda baryons are produced in minimum-bias events than in jets.

QCD: Restoration of chiral symmetry and deconfinement for largeNf

Exploiting the recent lattice results for the infrared gluon propagator with light dynamical quarks, we solve the gap equation for the quark propagator. We thus model the chiral symmetry breaking mechanism with increasing number of flavours and study confinement (intimately tied with the analytic properties of QCD Schwinger functions) order parameters. We obtain, with this approach, clear signals of chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement when the number of light quark flavors exceeds a critical value of $N_f^c \approx 8 \pm 1$, in agreement with the state-of-the-art direct lattice analysis of chiral symmetry restoration in QCD.

Asymmetric pairing of realistic mass quarks and color neutrality in the Polyakov–Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model of QCD

We investigate the effects of realistic quark masses and local color neutrality on quark pairing in the three-flavor Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. While prior studies have indicated the presence of light flavor quark (2SC) or symmetric color-flavor-locked (CFL) pairing at low temperatures, we find that in the absence of a local color neutrality constraint the inclusion of the Polyakov loop gives rise to phases in which all quark colors and flavors pair, but with unequal magnitudes. We study this asymmetric color-flavor-locked (ACFL) phase, which can exist even for equal mass quarks, identifying its location in the phase diagram, the order of the associated phase transitions, and its symmetry breaking pattern, which proves to be the intersection of the symmetry groups of the 2SC and CFL phases. We also investigate the effects of the strange quark mass on this new phase and the QCD phase diagram generally. Finally, we analyze the effect of a local color neutrality constraint on these phases of asymmetric pairing. We observe that for massless quarks the neutrality constraint renders the 2SC phase energetically unfavorable, eliminating it at low temperatures, and giving rise to the previously proposed low temperature critical point, with associated continuity between the hadronic and ACFL phases. For realistic strange quark masses, however, the neutrality constraint shrinks the 2SC region of the phase diagram, but does not eliminate it, at T=0.

Broken chiral symmetry on a null plane

On a null-plane (light-front), all effects of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking are contained in the three Hamiltonians (dynamical Poincaré generators), while the vacuum state is a chiral invariant. This property is used to give a general proof of Goldstone’s theorem on a null-plane. Focusing on null-plane QCD with N degenerate flavors of light quarks, the chiral-symmetry breaking Hamiltonians are obtained, and the role of vacuum condensates is clarified. In particular, the null-plane Gell-Mann–Oakes–Renner formula is derived, and a general prescription is given for mapping all chiral-symmetry breaking QCD condensates to chiral-symmetry conserving null-plane QCD condensates. The utility of the null-plane description lies in the operator algebra that mixes the null-plane Hamiltonians and the chiral symmetry charges. It is demonstrated that in a certain non-trivial limit, the null-plane operator algebra reduces to the symmetry group SU(2N) of the constituent quark model.