Light Quark Masses Research Articles

Size of the pion from full lattice QCD with physicalu,d,sandcquarks

We present the first calculation of the electromagnetic form factor of the $\pi$ meson at physical light quark masses. We use configurations generated by the MILC collaboration including the effect of $u$, $d$, $s$ and $c$ sea quarks with the Highly Improved Staggered Quark formalism. We work at three values of the lattice spacing on large volumes and with $u$/$d$ quark masses going down to the physical value. We study scalar and vector form factors for a range in space-like $q^2$ from 0.0 to -0.1 $\mathrm{GeV}^2$ and from their shape we extract mean square radii. Our vector form factor agrees well with experiment and we find $\langle r^2 \rangle_V = 0.403(18)(6) \,\mathrm{fm}^2$. For the scalar form factor we include quark-line disconnected contributions which have a significant impact on the radius. We give the first results for SU(3) flavour-singlet and octet scalar mean square radii, obtaining: $\langle r^2 \rangle_S^{\mathrm{singlet}} = 0.506(38)(53) \mathrm{fm}^2$ and $\langle r^2 \rangle_S^{\mathrm{octet}} = 0.431(38)(46) \mathrm{fm}^2$. We discuss the comparison with expectations from chiral perturbation theory.

Kaon BSMB-parameters using improved staggered fermions fromNf=2+1unquenched QCD

We present results for the matrix elements of the additional $\Delta S=2$ operators that appear in models of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), expressed in terms of four BSM $B$-parameters. Combined with experimental results for $\Delta M_K$ and $\epsilon_K$, these constrain the parameters of BSM models. We use improved staggered fermions, with valence HYP-smeared quarks and $N_f=2+1$ flavors of "asqtad" sea quarks. The configurations have been generated by the MILC collaboration. The matching between lattice and continuum four-fermion operators and bilinears is done perturbatively at one-loop order. We use three lattice spacings for the continuum extrapolation: $a\approx 0.09$, $0.06$ and $0.045\;$fm. Valence light-quark masses range down to $\approx m_s^{\rm phys}/13$ while the light sea-quark masses range down to $\approx m_s^{\rm phys}/20$. Compared to our previous published work, we have added four additional lattice ensembles, leading to better controlled extrapolations in the lattice spacing and sea-quark masses. We report final results for two renormalization scales, $\mu=2\;\text{GeV}$ and $3\;\text{GeV}$, and compare them to those obtained by other collaborations. Agreement is found for two of the four BSM $B$-parameters ($B_2$ and $B_3^\text{SUSY}$). The other two ($B_4$ and $B_5$) differ significantly from those obtained using RI-MOM renormalization as an intermediate scheme, but are in agreement with recent preliminary results obtained by the RBC-UKQCD collaboration using RI-SMOM intermediate schemes.

B*Bπcoupling using relativistic heavy quarks

We report on a calculation of the B*Bpi coupling in lattice QCD. The strong matrix element for a B* to Bpi transition is directly related to the leading order low-energy constant in heavy meson chiral perturbation theory (HMChPT) for B mesons. We carry out our calculation directly at the b-quark mass using a non-perturbatively tuned clover action that controls discretization effects of order pa and (ma)^n for all n. Our analysis is performed on RBC/UKQCD gauge configurations using domain-wall fermions and the Iwasaki gauge action at two lattice spacings of ainverse = 1.729(25) GeV, ainverse = 2.281(28) GeV, and unitary pion masses down to 290 MeV. We achieve good statistical precision and control all systematic uncertainties, giving a final result for the HMChPT coupling g_b = 0.56(3)stat(7)sys in the continuum and at the physical light-quark masses. This is the first calculation performed directly at the physical b-quark mass and lies in the region one would expect from carrying out an interpolation between previous results at the charm mass and at the static point.

Determination ofU(1)Arestoration from pion anda0-meson screening masses: Toward the chiral regime

We incorporate the effective restoration of $U(1)_{\rm A}$ symmetry in the 2+1 flavor entanglement Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (EPNJL) model by introducing a temperature-dependent strength $K(T)$ to the Kobayashi-Maskawa-'t Hooft (KMT) determinant interaction. $T$ dependence of $K(T)$ is well determined from pion and $a_0$-meson screening masses obtained by lattice QCD (LQCD) simulations with improved p4 staggered fermions. The strength is strongly suppressed in the vicinity of the pseudocritical temperature of chiral transition. The EPNJL model with the $K(T)$ well reproduces meson susceptibilities calculated by LQCD with domain-wall fermions. The model shows that the chiral transition is second order at the "light-quark chiral-limit" point where the light quark mass is zero and the strange quark mass is fixed at the physical value. This indicates that there exists a tricritical point. Hence the location is estimated.

The QCD axion, precisely

We show how several properties of the QCD axion can be extracted at high precision using only first principle QCD computations. By combining NLO results obtained in chiral perturbation theory with recent Lattice QCD results the full axion potential, its mass and the coupling to photons can be reconstructed with percent precision. Axion couplings to nucleons can also be derived reliably, with uncertainties smaller than ten percent. The approach presented here allows the precision to be further improved as uncertainties on the light quark masses and the effective theory couplings are reduced. We also compute the finite temperature dependence of the axion potential and its mass up to the crossover region. For higher temperature we point out the unreliability of the conventional instanton approach and study its impact on the computation of the axion relic abundance.

Non-perturbative tests of continuum HQET through small-volume two-flavour QCD

We study the heavy quark mass dependence of selected observables constructed from heavy-light meson correlation functions in small-volume two-flavour lattice QCD after taking the continuum limit. The light quark mass is tuned to zero, whereas the range of available heavy quark masses $m_h$ covers a region extending from around the charm to beyond the bottom quark mass scale. This allows entering the asymptotic mass-scaling regime as $1/m_h \to 0$ and performing well-controlled extrapolations to the infinite-mass limit. Our results are then compared to predictions obtained in the static limit of continuum Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET), in order to verify non-perturbatively that HQET is an effective theory of QCD. While in general we observe a nice agreement at the few-% level, we find it to be less convincing for the small-volume pseudoscalar decay constant when perturbative matching is involved.

Three symmetry breakings in strong and radiative decays of strange heavy mesons

In this paper, we investigate three symmetry breaking effects in strong and radiative decays of strange heavy mesons. We study 1/m_Q corrections within the heavy quark effect theory, as well as SU(3) and SU(2) symmetry breakings induced by light quark mass differences and the \eta-\pi mixing vertex. These effects are studied in a covariant model. The numerical results show that the 1/m_Q corrections of the coupling constants are consistent with \alpha_s \Lambda_{QCD}/m_Q. The SU(3) symmetry violating effect of the strong coupling constant is obviously larger than that of the magnetic coupling constant. The value of the \eta-\pi mixing vertex has some changes because of the renewed data. As compared with the other theoretical calculations and the experimental data, our radiative decay rates are much larger than those of the other theoretical methods, except for \chiPT; however, our branching ratios are close to the experimental data.

Pion–nucleon scattering: from chiral perturbation theory to Roy–Steiner equations

Ever since Weinberg’s seminal predictions of the pion–nucleon scattering amplitudes at threshold, this process has been of central interest for the study of chiral dynamics involving nucleons. The scattering lengths or the pion–nucleon σ-term are fundamental quantities characterizing the explicit breaking of chiral symmetry by means of the light quark masses. On the other hand, pion–nucleon dynamics also strongly affects the long-range part of nucleon–nucleon potentials, and hence has a far-reaching impact on nuclear physics. We discuss the fruitful combination of dispersion-theoretical methods, in the form of Roy–Steiner equations, with chiral dynamics to determine pion–nucleon scattering amplitudes at low energies with high precision.

Light meson decays from photon-induced reactions with CLAS

Photoproduction experiments with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer CLAS at the Thomas Jefferson National Facility produce data sets with competitive statistics of light mesons. With these data sets, measurements of transition form factors for η , ω , and η ′ mesons via conversion decays can be performed using the invariant mass distribution of the final state dileptons. Tests of fundamental symmetries and information on the light quark mass difference can be performed using a Dalitz plot analysis of the meson decay. An overview of preliminary results, from existing CLAS data, and future prospects within the newly upgraded CLAS12 apparatus are given.

Nonstandard Yukawa couplings and Higgs portal dark matter

We study the implications of non-standard Higgs Yukawa couplings to light quarks on Higgs-portal dark matter phenomenology. Saturating the present experimental bounds on up-quark, down-quark, or strange-quark Yukawa couplings, the predicted direct dark matter detection scattering rate can increase by up to four orders of magnitude. The effect on the dark matter annihilation cross section, on the other hand, is subleading unless the dark matter is very light -- a scenario that is already excluded by measurements of the Higgs invisible decay width. We investigate the expected size of corrections in multi-Higgs-doublet models with natural flavor conservation, the type-II two-Higgs-doublet model, the Giudice-Lebedev model of light quark masses, minimal flavor violation new physics models, Randall-Sundrum, and composite Higgs models. We find that an enhancement in the dark matter scattering rate of an order of magnitude is possible. Finally, we point out that a discovery of Higgs-portal dark matter could lead to interesting bounds on the light-quark Yukawa couplings.

Light-quark mass behaviour of the X(3872) as a molecular state

Chiral extrapolations of the binding energy of the X (3872) molecular state are investigated using an explicitly renormalizable framework free of finite cut-off artefacts. Insights into the binding mechanisms are discussed: if the X is less bound with the growing pion mass, its binding energy is governed by the explicit pion mass dependence from one-pion exchange; an opposite behaviour would indicate the importance of the pionmass dependent short-range interactions, in addition to pionic effects. The important role of the three-body DDπ dynamics is emphasised.

Finite volume corrections to the binding energy of the X(3872)

The quark mass dependence of hadrons is an important input for lattice calculations. We investigate the light quark mass dependence of the binding energy of the X(3872) in a finite box to next-to-leading order in an effective field theory for the X(3872) with perturbative pions (XEFT). At this order, the quark mass dependence is determined by a quark mass-dependent contact interaction in addition to the one-pion exchange. While there is only a moderate sensitivity to the light quark masses in the region up to twice their physical value, the finite volume effects are significant already at box length as large as 20 fm.

Binding energy of theX(3872)at unphysical pion masses

Chiral extrapolation of the $X(3872)$ binding energy is investigated using the modified Weinberg formulation of chiral effective field theory for the $D \bar{D}^*$ scattering. Given its explicit renormalisability, this approach is particularly useful to explore the interplay of the long- and short-range $D \bar{D}^*$ forces in the $X(3872)$ from studying the light-quark (pion) mass dependence of its binding energy. In particular, the parameter-free leading-order calculation shows that the $X$-pole disappears for unphysical large pion masses. On the other hand, without contradicting the naive dimensional analysis, the higher-order pion-mass-dependent contact interaction can change the slope of the binding energy at the physical point yielding the opposite scenario of a stronger bound $X$ at pion masses larger than its physical value. An important role of the pion dynamics and of the 3-body $D\bar{D}\pi$ effects for chiral extrapolations of the $X$-pole is emphasised. The results of the present study should be of practical value for the lattice simulations since they provide a non-trivial connection between lattice points at unphysical pion masses and the physical world.

Neutron Electric Dipole Moment and Tensor Charges from Lattice QCD

We present lattice QCD results on the neutron tensor charges including, for the first time, a simultaneous extrapolation in the lattice spacing, volume, and light quark masses to the physical point in the continuum limit. We find that the "disconnected" contribution is smaller than the statistical error in the "connected" contribution. Our estimates in the modified minimal subtraction scheme at 2 GeV, including all systematics, are g_{T}^{d-u}=1.020(76), g_{T}^{d}=0.774(66), g_{T}^{u}=-0.233(28), and g_{T}^{s}=0.008(9). The flavor diagonal charges determine the size of the neutron electric dipole moment (EDM) induced by quark EDMs that are generated in many new scenarios of CP violation beyond the standard model. We use our results to derive model-independent bounds on the EDMs of light quarks and update the EDM phenomenology in split supersymmetry with gaugino mass unification, finding a stringent upper bound of d_{n}<4×10^{-28} e cm for the neutron EDM in this scenario.

Isovector and isoscalar tensor charges of the nucleon from lattice QCD

We present results for the iso-vector and flavor diagonal tensor charges $g^{u-d}_T$, $g^{u}_T$, $g^{d}_T$, and $g^{s}_T$ needed to probe novel tensor interactions at the TeV scale in neutron and nuclear $\beta$-decays and the contribution of the quark electric dipole moment (EDM) to the neutron EDM. The lattice QCD calculations were done using nine ensembles of gauge configurations generated by the MILC collaboration using the HISQ action with 2+1+1 dynamical flavors. These ensembles span three lattice spacings $a \approx 0.06, 0.09$ and $0.12 $ fm and three quark masses corresponding to the pion masses $M_\pi \approx 130, 220$ and $310 $ MeV. Using estimates from these ensembles, we quantify all systematic uncertainties and perform a simultaneous extrapolation in the lattice spacing, volume and light quark masses for the connected contributions. The final estimates of the connected nucleon (proton) tensor charge for the iso-vector combination is $g_T^{u-d} = 1.020(76) $ in the $\bar{\text{MS}}$ scheme at $2$ GeV. The additional disconnected quark loop contributions needed for the flavor-diagonal matrix elements are calculated using a stochastic estimator employing the truncated solver method with the all-mode-averaging technique. We find that the size of the disconnected contribution is smaller than the statistical error in the connected contribution. This allows us to bound the disconnected contribution and include it as an additional uncertainty in the flavor-diagonal charges. After a continuum extrapolation, we find $g_T^{u} = 0.774(66) $, $g_T^{d} = -0.233(28) $ and $g_T^{u+d} = 0.541(67) $. The strangeness tensor charge, that can make a significant contribution to the neutron EDM due to the large ratio $m_s/m_{u,d}$, is $g_T^{s}=0.008(9)$ in the continuum limit.

New insights into theDs0*(2317)and other charm scalar mesons

Through the scattering of light-pseudoscalar mesons ($\pi,K,\eta,\eta'$) off charmed mesons ($D, D_s$), we study the $D^{*}_{s0}(2317)$ state and other relevant charm scalar mesons in a unitarized chiral effective field theory approach. We investigate the charm scalar meson poles with different strangeness ($S$) and isospin ($I$) quantum numbers as well as their corresponding residues, which provide the coupling strengths of the charm scalar mesons. Both the light-quark mass and $N_C$ dependences of the pole positions of the $D^{*}_{s0}(2317)$ and the poles with $(S,I)=(0,1/2)$ are analyzed in detail in this work. Interestingly we observe quite similar pion mass trajectories for the resonance pole at around 2.1 GeV with $(S,I)=(0,1/2)$ to those of the $f_0(500)$ given in the literature. When increasing the values of $N_C$ we find that a bound state and a virtual state in the $(S,I)=(1,0)$ channel asymmetrically approach the $D K$ threshold for $N_C<6$, and they meet at this threshold at $N_C=6$. When $N_C>6$, the bound and virtual states move into the complex plane on the second Riemann sheet and become a symmetric pair of resonance poles. For large enough values of $N_C$, neither the $D^{*}_{s0}(2317)$ pole nor the poles with $(S,I)=(0,1/2)$ tend to fall down to the real axis, indicating that they do not behave like a standard quark-antiquark meson at large $N_C$.

Coupledππ,KK¯scattering inP-wave and theρresonance from lattice QCD

We determine elastic and coupled-channel amplitudes for isospin-1 meson-meson scattering in $P$-wave, by calculating correlation functions using lattice QCD with light quark masses such that $m_\pi = 236$ MeV in a cubic volume of $\sim (4 \,\mathrm{fm})^3$. Variational analyses of large matrices of correlation functions computed using operator constructions resembling $\pi\pi$, $K\overline{K}$ and $q\bar{q}$, in several moving frames and several lattice irreducible representations, leads to discrete energy spectra from which scattering amplitudes are extracted. In the elastic $\pi\pi$ scattering region we obtain a detailed energy-dependence for the phase-shift, corresponding to a $\rho$ resonance, and we extend the analysis into the coupled-channel $K\overline{K}$ region for the first time, finding a small coupling between the channels.

Electromagnetic effects on the light hadron spectrum

For some time, the MILC Collaboration has been studying electromagnetic effects on light mesons. These calculations use fully dynamical QCD, but only quenched photons, which suffices to NLO in χPT. That is, the sea quarks are electrically neutral, while the valence quarks carry charge. For the photons we use the non-compact formalism. We have new results with lattice spacing as small as 0.045 fm and a large range of volumes. We consider how well chiral perturbation theory describes these results and the implications for light quark masses.

Charmed baryon spectroscopy and light flavor symmetry from lattice QCD

We determine the ground state and first excited state masses of singly and doubly charmed spin 1/2 and 3/2 baryons with positive and negative parity. Configurations with $N_f=2+1$ non-perturbatively improved Wilson-clover fermions were employed, with the same quark action also being used for the valence quarks, including the charm. The spectrum is calculated for pion masses in the range $M_\pi \sim 259-460$ MeV at a lattice spacing $a\sim 0.075$ fm. Finite volume effects are studied comparing lattices with two different linear spatial extents ($1.8\,{\rm fm}$ and $2.4\,{\rm fm}$). The physical point is approached from the SU(3) limit keeping the flavour averaged light quark mass fixed. The baryon masses are extrapolated using expansions in the strange-light quark mass difference. Most particles fall into the expected SU(3) multiplets with well constrained extrapolations, the exceptions having a possibly more complex internal structure. Overall agreement is found with experiment for the masses and splittings of the singly charmed baryons. As part of the calculation an analysis of the lower lying charmonium, $D$ and $D_s$ spectra was performed in order to assess discretisation errors. The gross spectra are reproduced, including the $D^*_{s0}$, $D_{s1}$ and $D_1$ mesons, while at this single lattice spacing hyperfine splittings come out $10-20$ MeV too low.

|Vub|fromB→πℓνdecays and (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD

We present a lattice-QCD calculation of the $B\to\pi\ell\nu$ semileptonic form factors and a new determination of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$. We use the MILC asqtad 2+1-flavor lattice configurations at four lattice spacings and light-quark masses down to 1/20 of the physical strange-quark mass. We extrapolate the lattice form factors to the continuum using staggered chiral perturbation theory in the hard-pion and SU(2) limits. We employ a model-independent $z$ parameterization to extrapolate our lattice form factors from large-recoil momentum to the full kinematic range. We introduce a new functional method to propagate information from the chiral-continuum extrapolation to the $z$ expansion. We present our results together with a complete systematic error budget, including a covariance matrix to enable the combination of our form factors with other lattice-QCD and experimental results. To obtain $|V_{ub}|$, we simultaneously fit the experimental data for the $B\to\pi\ell\nu$ differential decay rate obtained by the BaBar and Belle collaborations together with our lattice form-factor results. We find $|V_{ub}|=(3.72\pm 0.16)\times 10^{-3}$ where the error is from the combined fit to lattice plus experiments and includes all sources of uncertainty. Our form-factor results bring the QCD error on $|V_{ub}|$ to the same level as the experimental error. We also provide results for the $B\to\pi\ell\nu$ vector and scalar form factors obtained from the combined lattice and experiment fit, which are more precisely-determined than from our lattice-QCD calculation alone. These results can be used in other phenomenological applications and to test other approaches to QCD.