2+1 flavor QCD simulation on a $96^4$ lattice

We present the results of the physical point simulation in 2+1 flavor lattice QCD with the nonperturbatively $O(a)$-improved Wilson quark action and the Iwasaki gauge action at $\beta=1.9$ on a $32^3 \times 64$ lattice. The physical quark masses together with the lattice spacing is determined with $m_\pi$, $m_K$ and $m_\Omega$ as physical inputs. There are two key algorithmic ingredients to make possible the direct simulation at the physical point: One is the mass-preconditioned domain-decomposed HMC algorithm to reduce the computational cost. The other is the reweighting technique to adjust the hopping parameters exactly to the physical point. The physics results include the hadron spectrum, the quark masses and the pseudoscalar meson decay constants. The renormalization factors are nonperturbatively evaluated with the Schr{\"o}dinger functional method. The results are compared with the previous ones obtained by the chiral extrapolation method.

We have simulated QCD using 2+1 flavors of domain wall quarks on a $(2.74 {\rm fm})^3$ volume with an inverse lattice scale of $a^{-1} = 1.729(28)$ GeV. The up and down (light) quarks are degenerate in our calculations and we have used four values for the ratio of light quark masses to the strange (heavy) quark mass in our simulations: 0.217, 0.350, 0.617 and 0.884. We have measured pseudoscalar meson masses and decay constants, the kaon bag parameter $B_K$ and vector meson couplings. We have used SU(2) chiral perturbation theory, which assumes only the up and down quark masses are small, and SU(3) chiral perturbation theory to extrapolate to the physical values for the light quark masses. While next-to-leading order formulae from both approaches fit our data for light quarks, we find the higher order corrections for SU(3) very large, making such fits unreliable. We also find that SU(3) does not fit our data when the quark masses are near the physical strange quark mass. Thus, we rely on SU(2) chiral perturbation theory for accurate results. We use the masses of the $\Omega$ baryon, and the $\pi$ and $K$ mesons to set the lattice scale and determine the quark masses. We then find $f_\pi = 124.1(3.6)_{\rm stat}(6.9)_{\rm syst} {\rm MeV}$, $f_K = 149.6(3.6)_{\rm stat}(6.3)_{\rm syst} {\rm MeV}$ and $f_K/f_\pi = 1.205(0.018)_{\rm stat}(0.062)_{\rm syst}$. Using non-perturbative renormalization to relate lattice regularized quark masses to RI-MOM masses, and perturbation theory to relate these to $\bar{\rm MS}$ we find $ m_{ud}^{\bar{\rm MS}}(2 {\rm GeV}) = 3.72(0.16)_{\rm stat}(0.33)_{\rm ren}(0.18)_{\rm syst} {\rm MeV}$ and $m_{s}^{\bar{\rm MS}}(2 {\rm GeV}) = 107.3(4.4)_{\rm stat}(9.7)_{\rm ren}(4.9)_{\rm syst} {\rm MeV}$.

The SU(3) flavour symmetry breaking expansion in up, down and strange quark masses is extended from hadron masses to meson decay constants. This allows a determination of the ratio of kaon to pion decay constants in QCD. Furthermore when using partially quenched valence quarks the expansion is such that SU(2) isospin breaking effects can also be determined. It is found that the lowest order SU(3) flavour symmetry breaking expansion (or Gell-Mann–Okubo expansion) works very well. Simulations are performed for 2+1 flavours of clover fermions at four lattice spacings.

We present results for the static interquark potential, light meson and baryon masses, and light pseudoscalar meson decay constants obtained from simulations of domain wall QCD with one dynamical flavour approximating the s quark, and two degenerate dynamical flavours with input bare masses ranging from m{sub s} to m{sub s}/4 approximating the u and d quarks. We compare these quantities obtained using the Iwasaki and DBW2 improved gauge actions, and actions with larger rectangle coefficients, on 16{sup 3}x32 lattices. We seek parameter values at which both the chiral symmetry breaking residual mass due to the finite lattice extent in the fifth dimension and the Monte Carlo time history for topological charge are acceptable for this set of quark masses at lattice spacings above 0.1 fm. We find that the Iwasaki gauge action is best, demonstrating the feasibility of using QCDOC to generate ensembles which are good representations of the QCD path integral on lattices of up to 3 fm in spatial extent with lattice spacings in the range 0.09-0.13 fm. Despite large residual masses and a limited number of sea quark-mass values with which to perform chiral extrapolations, our results for light hadronic physics scale and agree with experimental measurementsmore » within our statistical uncertainties.« less

Partially quenched chiral perturbation theory and numerical simulations

We present a calculation of the electromagnetic form factor of the pion in N f = 2 + 1 flavor lattice QCD. Calculations are made on the PACS-CS gauge field configurations generated using Iwasaki gauge action and Wilson-clover quark action on a 323 × 64 lattice volume with the lattice spacing estimated as a = 0.0907(13) fm at the physical point. Measurements of the form factor are made using the technique of partially twisted boundary condition to reach small momentum transfer as well as periodic boundary condition with integer momenta. Additional improvements including random wall source techniques and a judicious choice of momenta carried by the incoming and outgoing quarks are employed for error reduction. Analyzing the form factor data for the pion mass at M π ≈ 411 MeV and 296 MeV, we find that the NNLO SU(2) chiral perturbation theory fit yields 〈r 2〉 = 0.441 ± 0.046 fm2 for the pion charge radius at the physical pion mass. Albeit the error is quite large, this is consistent with the experimental value of 0.452 ± 0.011 fm2. Below M π ≈ 300 MeV, we find that statistical fluctuations in the pion two-and three-point functions become too large to extract statistically meaningful averages on a 323 spatial volume. We carry out a sample calculation on a 644 lattice with the quark masses close to the physical point, which suggests that form factor calculations at the physical point become feasible by enlarging lattice sizes to M π L ≈ 4.

The quenched chiral logs are examined on a $16^3 \times 28$ lattice with Iwasaki gauge action and overlap fermions. The pion decay constant $f_{\pi}$ is used to set the lattice spacing, $a = 0.200(3) {\rm fm}$. With pion mass as low as $\sim 180 {\rm MeV}$, we see the quenched chiral logs clearly in $m_{\pi}^2/m$ and $f_P$, the pseudoscalar decay constant. We analyze the data to determine how low the pion mass needs to be in order for the quenched one-loop chiral perturbation theory ($\chi$PT) to apply. With the constrained curve-fitting method, we are able to extract the quenched chiral log parameter $\delta$ together with other low-energy parameters. Only for $m_{\pi} \leq 300 {\rm MeV}$ do we obtain a consistent and stable fit with a constant $\delta$ which we determine to be 0.24(3)(4) (at the chiral scale $\Lambda_{\chi}=0.8 {\rm GeV}$). By comparing to the $12^3 \times 28$ lattice, we estimate the finite volume effect to be about 2.7% for the smallest pion mass. We also fitted the pion mass to the form for the re-summed cactus diagrams and found that its applicable region is extended farther than the range for the one-loop formula, perhaps up to $m_{\pi} \sim 500-600$ MeV. The scale independent $\delta$ is determined to be 0.20(3) in this case. We study the quenched non-analytic terms in the nucleon mass and find that the coefficient $C_{1/2}$ in the nucleon mass is consistent with the prediction of one-loop $\chi$PT\@. We also obtain the low energy constant $L_5$ from $f_{\pi}$. We conclude from this study that it is imperative to cover only the range of data with the pion mass less than $\sim 300 {\rm MeV}$ in order to examine the chiral behavior of the hadron masses and decay constants in quenched QCD and match them with quenched one-loop $\chi$PT\@.

The QCD sum-rules of Shifman et al. for n-th order moments are applied to the determination of the decay constants of pseudoscalar mesons containing a heavy quark (c or b). The general case when Q/sup 2/, the squared momentum transfer, is non-zero is considered. The stability of the sum-rules against variations in both Q/sup 2/ and n is discussed.

We present an update on ongoing work to extract pseudoscalar and vector decay constants for $B^{(*)}$, $B^{(*)}_s$ and $B^{(*)}_c$ mesons and determine phenomenologically-interesting ratios such as $f_{B_s}/f_B$ or $f_{B^*}/f_B$. Our calculation is based on ${\rm N_f}=2+1$ dynamical flavour gauge field ensembles generated by the RBC/UKQCD collaborations using domain-wall fermions and the Iwasaki gauge action. Using domain-wall light, strange, and charm quarks and relativistic $b$ quarks, we obtain results at multiple lattice spacings and valence quark masses.

We present preliminary results for nucleon form factors including the axial charge and the isovector electric radius in 2+1 flavor QCD at almost the physical pion mass on a $96^4$ lattice with the lattice spacing of 0.085 fm. The configurations are generated with the stout-smeared $O(a)$-improved Wilson quark action and the Iwasaki gauge action at $\beta$=1.82. A large spatial volume of $(8.1 {\rm fm})^3$ allows us to investigate the form factors at small momentum transfer region. We discuss analyses of the momentum dependence of the form factors with the z-expansion.

We update our determinations of f D + , f D s , f K , and quark mass ratios from simulations with four flavors of HISQ dynamical quarks.The availability of ensembles with light quarks near their physical mass means that we can extract physical results with only small corrections for valence-and sea-quark mass mistunings instead of a chiral extrapolation.The adjusted valencequark masses and lattice spacings may be determined from an ensemble-by-ensemble analysis, and the results for the quark mass ratios then extrapolated to the continuum limit.Our central values of the charmed meson decay constants, however, come from an alternative analysis, which uses staggered chiral perturbation theory for the heavy-light mesons, and allows us to incorporate data at unphysical quark masses where statistical errors are often smaller.A jackknife analysis propagated through all of these steps takes account of the correlations among all the quantities used in the analysis.Systematic errors from the finite spatial size and EM effects are estimated by varying the parameters in the analysis, and systematic errors from the assumptions in the continuum extrapolation are estimated from the spread of values from different extrapolations.

The infrared regularized and the large Nc standard U(3) chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) predicted scaling of the pion, kaon decay constants fπ, fK, and Mη2=mη2+mη′2, has been used in the renormalized 2+1 flavor quark-meson (RQM) model to find a consistent path to the chiral limit as the π and K meson masses approach zero. Using the inputs from the above two prescriptions of the ChPT, the Columbia plots are drawn and compared in the mπ−mK and the light strange quark mass mud−ms planes, free from any ambiguity or heuristic adjustment in the model parameter fixing away from the physical point. The on-shell renormalization of the parameters and consistent treatment of the divergent quark one-loop vacuum fluctuations in the RQM model make the axial UA(1) anomaly significantly stronger, and the light (strange) explicit chiral symmetry breaking strength becomes weaker by a small (relatively large) amount. The first-order chiral transition region in the mπ−mK and μ−mK planes of the Columbia plots generated using the inputs from both versions of the ChPT increases due to the above novel features of the RQM model. Comparing our results (in the presence of the axial UA(1) anomaly) regarding the softening effect of the quark one-loop vacuum fluctuations on the chiral transition, it looks overestimated in a recent functional renormalization group study. The UA(1) symmetry and the SUA(3) chiral symmetry restoration in the chiral limit takes place at the same transition temperature.

We develop Chiral Perturbation Theory for chirally broken theories with fermions in two different representations of the gauge group. Any such theory has a non-anomalous singlet $U(1)_A$ symmetry, yielding an additional Nambu-Goldstone boson when spontaneously broken. We calculate the next-to-leading order corrections for the pseudoscalar masses and decay constants, which include the singlet Nambu-Goldstone boson, as well as for the two condensates. The results can be generalized to more than two representations.

We have employed the framework of Bethe–Salpeter equation under covariant instantaneous ansatz to calculate leptonic decay constants of unequal mass pseudoscalar mesons like π±, K, D, DS and B, and radiative decay constants of neutral pseudoscalar mesons like π0 and ηc into two photons. In the Dirac structure of hadronic Bethe–Salpeter wave function, the covariants are incorporated from their complete set in accordance with a recently proposed power counting rule. The contribution of both leading order and next-to-leading order Dirac covariants to decay constants are studied. The results are found to improve and hence validating the power counting rule which provides a practical means of incorporating Dirac covariants in the Bethe–Salpeter wave function for a hadron.

Using Chiral Perturbation Theory at one-loop we analyze the consequences of twisted boundary conditions. We point out that due to the broken Lorentz and reflection symmetry a number of unexpected terms show up in the expressions. We explicitly discuss the pseudo-scalar octet masses, axial-vector and pseudo-scalar decay constants and electromagnetic form-factors. We show how the Ward identities are satisfied using the momentum dependent masses and the non-zero vacuum-expectation-values values for the electromagnetic (vector) currents. Explicit expressions at one-loop are provided and an appendix discusses the needed one-loop twisted finite volume integrals.