Stout-link Smearing Research Articles

Equivalence between the Wilson flow and stout-link smearing

Equivalence between the Wilson flow and stout-link smearing

Instanton contributions to the low-lying hadron mass spectrum

The role of instanton-like objects in the QCD vacuum on the mass spectrum of low-lying light hadrons is explored in lattice QCD. Using over-improved stout-link smearing, tuned to preserve instanton-like objects in the QCD vacuum, the evolution of the mass spectrum under smearing is examined. The calculation is performed using a $20^3\times40$ dynamical fat-link-irrelevant-clover (FLIC) fermion action ensemble with lattice spacing 0.126 fm. Through the consideration of a range of pion masses, the effect of the vacuum instanton content is compared at a common pion mass. While the qualitative features of ground-state hadrons are preserved on instanton-dominated configurations, the excitation spectrum experiences significant changes. The underlying physics revealed shows little similarity to the direct-instanton interaction predictions of the instanton liquid model.

Quark propagation in the instantons of lattice QCD

We quantitatively examine the extent to which instanton degrees of freedom, contained within standard Monte-Carlo generated gauge-field configurations, can maintain the characteristic features of the mass and renormalization functions of the nonperturbative quark propagator. We use over-improved stout-link smearing to isolate instanton effects on the lattice. Using a variety of measures, we illustrate how gauge fields consisting almost solely of instantonlike objects are produced after only 50 sweeps of smearing. We find a full vacuum, with a packing fraction more than three times larger than phenomenological models predict. We calculate the overlap quark propagator on these smeared configurations, and find that even at high levels of smearing the majority of the characteristic features of the propagator are reproduced. We thus conclude that instantons contained within standard Monte-Carlo generated gauge-field configurations are the degrees of freedom responsible for the dynamical generation of mass observed in lattice QCD.

Effects of flavor-symmetry violation from staggered fermion lattice simulations of graphene

We analyze the effects of flavor splitting from staggered fermion lattice simulations of a low-energy effective theory for graphene. Both the unimproved action and the tadpole-improved action with a Naik term show significant flavor-symmetry breaking in the spectrum of the Dirac operator. Note that this is true even in the vicinity of the second-order phase transition point where it has been argued that the flavor-symmetry breaking should be small due to the continuum limit being approached. We show that at weaker couplings the flavor splitting is drastically reduced by stout link smearing, while this mechanism is ineffective at the stronger couplings relevant to suspended graphene. We also measure the average plaquette and describe how it calls for a reinterpretation of previous lattice Monte Carlo simulation results, due to tadpole improvement. After taking into account these effects, we conclude that previous lattice simulations are possibly indicative of an insulating phase, although the effective number of light flavors could be effectively less than two due to the flavor-splitting effects. If that is true, then simulations with truly chiral fermions (such as overlap fermions) are needed in order to settle the question.

Preconditioning maximal center gauge with stout link smearing inSU(3)

Center vortices are studied in SU(3) gauge theory using Maximal Center Gauge (MCG) fixing. Stout link smearing and over-improved stout link smearing are used to construct a preconditioning gauge field transformation, applied to the original gauge field before fixing to MCG. We find that preconditioning successfully achieves higher gauge fixing maxima. We observe a reduction in the number of identified vortices when preconditioning is used, and also a reduction in the vortex-only string tension.

Wilson mass dependence of the overlap topological charge density

The dependence of the overlap Dirac operator on the Wilson-mass regulator parameter is studied through calculations of the overlap topological charge densities at a variety of Wilson-mass values, using a Lüscher–Weisz gauge action. In this formulation, the Wilson-mass is used in the negative mass region and acts as a regulator governing the scale at which the Dirac operator is sensitive to topological aspects of the gauge field. We observe a clear dependence on the value of the Wilson-mass and demonstrate how these values can be calibrated against a finite number of stout-link smearing sweeps. The overlap topological charge density is also computed using a pre-smeared gauge field for the input kernel. We show how applying the overlap operator leads to further filtering of the gauge field. The results suggest that the freedom typically associated with smearing algorithms, through the variable number of sweeps, also exists in the overlap operator, through the variable Wilson-mass parameter.

Stout-link smearing in lattice fermion actions

The properties of the momentum space quark propagator in Landau gauge are studied for the overlap quark action in quenched lattice QCD. Numerical calculations are performed over four ensembles of gauge configurations, where three are smeared using either 1, 3, or 6 sweeps of stout-link smearing. We calculate the non-perturbative wave function renormalization function $Z(p)$ and the non-perturbative mass function $M(p)$ for a variety of bare quark masses. We find that the wave-function renormalization function is slightly sensitive to the number of stout-link smearing sweeps. For the mass function we find the effect of the stout-link smearing algorithm to be small for moderate to light bare quark masses. For a heavy bare quark mass we find a strong dependence on the number of smearing sweeps.

Impact of dynamical fermions on QCD vacuum structure

We examine how dynamical fermions affect both the UV and infrared structure of the QCD vacuum. We consider large ${28}^{3}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}96$ lattices from the MILC collaboration, using a gluonic definition of the topological charge density, founded on a new over-improved stout-link smearing algorithm. The algorithm reproduces established results from the overlap formalism and preserves nontrivial topological objects, including instantons. At short distances we focus on the topological charge correlator, $⟨q(x)q(0)⟩$, where negative values at small $x$ reveal a sign-alternating layered structure to the topological-charge density of the QCD vacuum. We find that the magnitudes of the negative dip in the $⟨q(x)q(0)⟩$ correlator and the positive $⟨q(0{)}^{2}⟩$ contact term are both increased with the introduction of dynamical fermion degrees of freedom. At large distances we examine the extent to which instanton-like objects are found on the lattice, and how their distributions vary between quenched and dynamical gauge fields. We show that dynamical gauge fields contain more instanton-like objects with an average size greater than in the quenched vacuum. Finally, we directly visualize the topological charge density in order to investigate the effects of dynamical sea-quark degrees of freedom on topology.

Tuning for three flavors of anisotropic clover fermions with stout-link smearing

In this work we perform the parameter tuning of three flavors of dynamical clover quarks on anisotropic lattices. The fermion action uses three-dimensional spatial stout-link smearing. The gauge anisotropy is determined in a small box with Schr\"odinger background using Wilson-loop ratios. The fermion anisotropy is obtained from studying the meson dispersion relation with antiperiodic boundary conditions in the time direction. The spatial and temporal clover coefficients are fixed to the tree-level tadpole-improved values, and we demonstrate that they satisfy the nonperturbative conditions as determined by the Schr\"odinger-functional method. For the desired lattice spacing ${a}_{s}\ensuremath{\approx}0.12\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{fm}$ and renormalized anisotropy $\ensuremath{\xi}=3.5$, we find the gauge and fermionic anisotropies can be fixed to quark mass independent values up through the strange quark mass. This work lays the foundation needed for further studies of the excited-state hadron spectrum.

Publisher’s Note: Vacuum structure revealed by over-improved stout-link smearing compared with the overlap analysis for quenched QCD [Phys. Rev. D77, 074502 (2008)

A detailed comparison is made between the topological structure of quenched QCD as revealed by the recently proposed over-improved stout-link smearing in conjunction with an improved gluonic definition of the topological density on one hand and a similar analysis made possible by the overlap-fermionic topological charge density both with and without variable ultraviolet cutoff $\lambda_{cut}$. The matching is twofold, provided by fitting the density-density two-point functions on one hand and by a point-by-point fitting of the topological densities according to the two methods. We point out the similar cluster structure of the topological density for moderate smearing and $200 \mathrm{MeV} < \lambda_{cut} < 600 \mathrm{MeV}$, respectively. We demonstrate the relation of the gluonic topological density for extensive smearing to the location of the overlap zero modes and the lowest overlap non-zero mode as found for the unsmeared configurations.

Over-improved stout-link smearing

A new over-improved stout-link smearing algorithm, designed to stabilize instanton-like objects, is presented. A method for quantifying the selection of the over-improvement parameter, $ϵ$, is demonstrated. The new smearing algorithm is compared with the original stout-link smearing, and Symanzik improved smearing through calculations of the topological charge and visualizations of the topological charge density. We find the incorporation of improvement in stout-link smearing to be essential for the accurate study of QCD vacuum structure.

Vacuum structure revealed by over-improved stout-link smearing compared with the overlap analysis for quenched QCD

A detailed comparison is made between the topological structure of quenched QCD as revealed by the recently proposed over-improved stout-link smearing in conjunction with an improved gluonic definition of the topological density on one hand and a similar analysis made possible by the overlap-fermionic topological charge density both with and without variable ultraviolet cutoff ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathrm{cut}}$. The matching is twofold, provided by fitting the density-density two-point functions on one hand and by a point-by-point fitting of the topological densities according to the two methods. We point out the similar cluster structure of the topological density for moderate smearing and $200\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}&lt;{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathrm{cut}}&lt;600\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$, respectively. We demonstrate the relation of the gluonic topological density for extensive smearing to the location of the overlap zero modes and the lowest overlap nonzero mode as found for the unsmeared configurations.