Chiral extrapolation of lattice data for B-meson decay constant

The B-meson decay constant f_B has been calculated from unquenched lattice QCD in the unphysical region. For extrapolating the lattice data to the physical region, we propose a phenomenological functional form based on the effective chiral perturbation theory for heavy mesons, which respects both the heavy quark symmetry and the chiral symmetry, and the non-relativistic constituent quark model which is valid at large pion masses. The inclusion of pion loop corrections leads to non-analytic contributions to f_B when the pion mass is small. The finite-range regularization technique is employed for the re-summation of higher-order terms of the chiral expansion. We also take into account the finite volume effects in lattice simulations. The dependence on the parameters and other uncertainties in our model are discussed. PACS 12.39.Fe; 12.39.Hg; 12.39.-x; 12.38.Gc     

On the phase structure of QCD in a finite volume

The chiral phase transition in QCD at finite chemical potential and temperature can be characterized for small chemical potential by its curvature and the transition temperature. The curvature is accessible to QCD lattice simulations, which are always performed at finite pion masses and in finite simulation volumes. We investigate the effect of a finite volume on the curvature of the chiral phase transition line. We use functional renormalization group methods with a two flavor quark-meson model to obtain the effective action in a finite volume, including both quark and meson fluctuation effects. Depending on the chosen boundary conditions and the pion mass, we find pronounced finite-volume effects. For periodic quark boundary conditions in spatial directions, we observe a decrease in the curvature in intermediate volume sizes, which we interpret in terms of finite-volume quark effects. Our results have implications for the phase structure of QCD in a finite volume, where the location of a possible critical endpoint might be shifted compared to the infinite-volume case.     

On the scaling behavior of the chiral phase transition in QCD in finite and infinite volume

We study the scaling behavior of the two-flavor chiral phase transition using an effective quark–meson model. We investigate the transition between infinite-volume and finite-volume scaling behavior when the system is placed in a finite box. We can estimate effects that the finite volume and the explicit symmetry breaking by the current quark masses have on the scaling behavior which is observed in full QCD lattice simulations. The model allows us to explore large quark masses as well as the chiral limit in a wide range of volumes, and extract information about the scaling regimes. In particular, we find large scaling deviations for physical pion masses and significant finite-volume effects for pion masses that are used in current lattice simulations.     

Nuclear force from lattice QCD

The nucleon-nucleon (NN) potential is studied by lattice QCD simulations in the quenched approximation, using the plaquette gauge action and the Wilson quark action on a 32(4) [approximately (4.4 fm)(4)] lattice. A NN potential V(NN)(r) is defined from the equal-time Bethe-Salpeter amplitude with a local interpolating operator for the nucleon. By studying the NN interaction in the (1)S(0) and (3)S(1) channels, we show that the central part of V(NN)(r) has a strong repulsive core of a few hundred MeV at short distances (r approximately < 0.5 fm) surrounded by an attractive well at medium and long distances. These features are consistent with the known phenomenological features of the nuclear force.     

Lattice QCD Calculation of ππ Scattering Length

We study s-wave pion-pion scattering length in lattice QCD for pion masses ranging from 330 MeV to 466 MeV.In the "Asqtad" improved staggered fermion formulation,we measure full ππ four-point correlators for isospin I = 0 and 2 channels,and use chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order to extrapolate our simulation results.Extrapolating to the physical pion mass yields scattering lengths as mπaI=2 0 = 0.041 6(2) and m π a I =0 0 = 0.186(2) for isospin I = 2 and 0 channels,respectively.Our lattice simulation for ππ scattering length in I = 0 channel is an exploratory study,where we include the disconnected contribution,and our preliminary result is near to its experimental value.These simulations are carried out with MILC 2 + 1 flavor gauge configurations at lattice spacing a ≈ 0.15 fm.     

格点核子-核子势在核物质中的相对论效应(英文)

利用最新的格点核子-核子势研究了核物质中的相对论效应。通过此格点核子-核子势场,首先我们构建一个包括π介子,σ介子以及ω介子的单玻色子交换势。势场中的介子-核子耦合常数以及截断动量通过拟合格点核力得到的核子-核子散射相移确定。随后采用非常成功的第一性原理多体计算方法Brueckner-Hartree-Fock模型,计算了核物质的基本性质。发现对称核物质的状态方程以及饱和性质在非相对论框架和相对论框架中有很明显的区别。在格点核力中,该相对论效应对核物质的结合能提供吸引的贡献。这与采用传统的核力计算得到的结果是相反的。The relativistic effect in nuclear matter is investigated with the latest lattice nucleon-nucleon (NN) potential. A one-boson-exchange potential (OBEP) including three mesons, pion, σ meson and ω meson was constructed based on the lattice NN potential. The meson-nucleon coupling constants and cutoff momentums are determined by fitting the phase shifts of NN scattering from lattice NN potential. The properties of nuclear matter with this OBEP from lattice potential are calculated by one very successful ab initio many-body method, Brueckner-Hartree-Fock model. The equations of state and saturation properties of symmetric nuclear matter present very obvious different behaviors in non-relativistic and relativistic frameworks. The relativistic effect plays attractive contributions with the components of S and D waves in lattice NN potential, which is opposite comparing to the relativistic effect from the conventional NN potential.     

Nonperturbative heavy-quark diffusion in the quark-gluon plasma

We evaluate heavy-quark (HQ) transport properties in a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) within a Brueckner many-body scheme employing interaction potentials extracted from thermal lattice QCD. The in-medium T matrices for elastic charm- and bottom-quark scattering off light quarks in the QGP are dominated by attractive meson and diquark channels which support resonance states up to temperatures of ~1.5T(c). The resulting drag coefficient increases with decreasing temperature, contrary to expectations based on perturbative QCD scattering. Employing relativistic Langevin simulations we compute HQ spectra and elliptic flow in sqrt[s(NN)]=200 GeV Au-Au collisions. A good agreement with electron decay data supports our nonperturbative computation of HQ diffusion, indicative for a strongly coupled QGP.     

Lambda-Nucleon and Nucleon–Nucleon Interactions on the Lattice

Lattice QCD study of nuclear potentials is reported. A lattice QCD method to calculate realistic nuclear potentials is developed. In this method, Bethe–Salpeter wave functions generated on the lattice are used to reconstruct nuclear potentials by using Schrödinger equation. It is one of the possible extensions of Lüscher’s finite volume method for scattering phase shifts. Hence the resulting potential can reproduce the scattering data. The method was first applied to the central potential in NN system. It is now applied to various objects, such as tensor potential, hyperon potentials both in quenched QCD and 2 + 1 flavor QCD generated by PACS-CS Collaboration.     

QCD at finite isospin density

QCD at finite isospin chemical potential mu(I) has no fermion sign problem and can be studied on the lattice. We solve this theory analytically in two limits: at low mu(I), where chiral perturbation theory is applicable, and at asymptotically high mu(I), where perturbative QCD works. At low isospin density the ground state is a pion condensate, whereas at high density it is a Fermi liquid with Cooper pairing. The pairs carry the same quantum numbers as the pion. This leads us to conjecture that the transition from hadron to quark matter is smooth, which passes several tests. Our results imply a nontrivial phase diagram in the space of temperature and chemical potentials of isospin and baryon number.     

Baryon-Baryon interactions from lattice QCD

We report on new attempt to investigate baryon-baryon interactions in lattice QCD. From the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) wave function, we have successfully extracted the nucleon-nucleon (NN) potentials in quenched QCD simulations, which reproduce qualitative features of modern NN potentials. The method has been extended to obtain the tensor potential as well as the central potential and also applied to the hyperon-nucleon (YN) interactions, in both quenched and full QCD.     

Screening of light mesons and charmonia at high temperature

We present lattice QCD results for the screening masses of light mesons and charmonia. The lattice computations were performed with 2 + 1 flavors of improved staggered quarks using quark masses which correspond to realistic pion and kaon masses at zero temperature. For the light quark sector we have found that the screening masses in the pseudo-scalar and the isovector scalar channels do not become degenerate at the chiral crossover temperature indicating an effective non-restoration of the axial symmetry. Also the splitting between the vector and the pseudo-scalar screening masses persists even in the limit of zero lattice spacing and at a moderately high temperature around 420 MeV. In the charmonium sector our investigation shows that the screening masses of the pseudo-scalar and the vector charmonia are almost (within a few percent) equal to their zero temperature masses for temperatures less than 300 MeV. We also present results for the charmonium screening masses using periodic boundary conditions along the temporal direction and discuss their implications.     

Dibaryon Signals in NN Scattering Data and Further Measurement at COSY,LEPS and CSR

The NΔ and ΔΔ dibaryon resonances are studied by calculating the NN scattering phase shifts with explicitly coupling these dibaryon channels in a multi-channel coupling calculation with two quark models.These quark models,the chiral quark model and quark delocalization color screening model,describe the NN S-,D-wave phase shifts below the π production threshold quantitatively well.Both quark models predict the ~1D_2 resonance discovered in NN partial wave phase shift analysis and the J=1 or 3 isoscalar resonance recently reported by CELSIUS-WASA Collaboration are NΔ~5S_2 and ΔΔ~7S_3 resonance,respectively.Further measurements at COSY,LEPS and Lanzhou Cooling Storage Ring(CSR) to check the ΔΔ resonance are discussed.     

Extracting low-energy hadron-hadron physics from lattice QCD

Lattice QCD simulations of the hadron-hadron interactions can be very useful in situations where experimental guidance to phenomenological calculations is missing. Moreover, they can determine how nuclear processes depend upon the fundamental constants of nature. Within this framework, I will discuss recent efforts carried out by the Nuclear Physics Lattice QCD collaboration, and present some results for the low-energy scattering parameters in the strange baryon-baryon sector. These simulations have been performed with domain-wall valence quarks on dynamical staggered gauge configurations with lattice spacing of b = 0.125 fm and pion masses between m _π ≈ 300 and 500?MeV.     

Chiral extrapolation of nucleon wave function normalization constants

Within the framework of two-flavor covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory we have expressed the Chernyak-Zhitnitsky, Ioffe and Dosch currents in terms of chiral fields to provide leading one-loop extrapolation formulae for the leading and next-to-leading twist normalization constants f _N , λ₁ and λ₂. Finite-volume effects due to pion loops have been taken into account. The occurring low-energy constants are fitted to data obtained from recent lattice QCD simulations in order to extract the values at the physical point.     

An effective lagrangian with broken scale and chiral symmetry IV: Nucleons and mesons at finite temperature

We study the finite temperature properties of an effective chiral Lagrangian which describes nuclear matter. Thermal fluctuations in both the nucleon and the meson fields are considered. The logarithmic and square root terms in the effective potential are evaluated by expansion and resummation with the result written in terms of the exponential integral and the error function, respectively. In the absence of explicit chiral symmetry breaking a phase transition restores the symmetry, but when the pion has a mass the transition is smooth. The nucleon and meson masses as a functions of density and temperature are discussed.     

Constraining the QCD phase diagram by tricritical lines at imaginary chemical potential

We present unambiguous evidence, from lattice simulations of QCD with three degenerate quark species, for two tricritical points in the (T, m) phase diagram at fixed imaginary chemical potential μ/T = iπ/3 mod2π/3, one in the light and one in the heavy mass regime. These represent the boundaries of the chiral and deconfinement critical lines continued to imaginary μ, respectively. It is demonstrated that the shape of the deconfinement critical line for real chemical potentials is dictated by tricritical scaling and implies the weakening of the deconfinement transition with real chemical potential. The generalization to nondegenerate and light quark masses is discussed.     

Medium modifications of kaons in pion matter

Kaon in-medium masses and mean-field potentials are calculated in isotopically symmetric pion matter to one loop of chiral perturbation theory. The results are extended to BNL RHIC temperatures using experimental data on piK scattering phase shifts. The kaon in-medium broadening results in an acceleration of the phi-->K(-)K decay. The increased apparent dilepton branching of the phi mesons, observed recently by the NA50, NA49, and PHENIX Collaborations at RHIC, is interpreted in terms of rescattering of secondary kaons inside the pion matter.     

Effective lagrangian of mesons and baryons in the strong-coupling expansion of lattice QCD

U(N) and SU(N) lattice QCD are considered. By using a method of the strong-coupling expansion, the effective lagrangian of hadrons is calculated up to the first order in 1/(g²N). For the Susskind lattice fermions, it is shown that chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken and as a result there appears the Nambu-Goldstone boson (pion). The fermion condensation 〈$\text{ψ}\text{ψ}$t>, the masses of hadrons and the pion decay constant are calculated and compared with the results of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. In the strong-coupling region, our result of the order parameter 〈$\text{ψ}\text{ψ}$〉 coincides very well with that calculated by MC simulations.