A numerical study of lattice QED with dynamical fermions

Using the pseudo-fermion method U(1) lattice gauge theory with dynamical staggered fermions is studied. The plaqette energy, the chiral order parameter and the Polyakov line have been measured. With fermions of mass 0.20 and 0.25 a phase transition is observed, separating the strong coupling regime from a phase where chiral symmetry is restored.     

QCD thermodynamics with dynamical overlap fermions

We study QCD thermodynamics using two flavors of dynamical overlap fermions with quark masses corresponding to a pion mass of 350 MeV. We determine several observables on _Nt=6$N_t=6$ and 8 lattices. All our runs are performed with fixed global topology. Our results are compared with staggered ones and a nice agreement is found.     

Chiral Schwinger model with massive fermions

We study the chiral Schwinger model with massive fermions. By bosonizing it within the path integral framework, we find an equivalent bosonic lagrangian with an interaction term of the sine-Gordon type. The consistency of the theory is discussed.     

The lattice Schwinger model with SLAC fermions

The lattice Schwinger model with SLAC fermions is analyzed with two methods: a Hartree-Fock calculation of the ground state wave function, and a weak coupling approximation involving a truncated SLAC derivative. It is shown that a Goldstone boson of chiral symmetry is actually present, but in the weak coupling limit it acquires infinite velocity.     

Hopping-parameter expansion and the Schwinger model with Wilson fermions

The hopping-parameter expansion method is used to study the Euclidean lattice Schwinger model with Wilson fermions. The effect of virtual fermion loops is also analyzed. The relation between the \(\bar \psi \psi\) operators in the continuum and on the lattice is constructed. Our result shows satisfactory scaling behavior and reproduces well the exactly calculable value for the fermion condensate in the continuum.     

Topology of dynamical lattice configurations including results from dynamical overlap fermions

We investigate how the topological charge density in lattice QCD simulations is affected by violations of chiral symmetry caused by the fermion action. To this end we compare lattice configurations generated with a number of different actions including first configurations generated with exact dynamical overlap quarks. We visualize the topological profiles after mild smearing. In the topological charge correlator we measure the size of the positive core, which is known to shrink to zero extension in the continuum limit. To leading order we find the core size to scale linearly with the lattice spacing with the same coefficient for all actions, even including quenched simulations. In the subleading term the different actions vary over a range of about 10%. Our findings suggest that non-chiral lattice actions at current lattice spacings do not differ much for observables related to topology, both among themselves and compared to overlap fermions.     

Monte Carlo calculations with fermions: The Schwinger model

An algorithm for Monte Carlo simulation of lattice gauge theories with fermions is presented. The method is applied to the Schwinger model with two flavors of massless fermions, formulated on a two-dimensional euclidean lattice. Preliminary results of the Monte Carlo iteration of this system are presented, with special emphasis on the behavior of the Wilson loop and bilocal chiral correlation functions such as $\text{〈}\text{ψ}\text{(1 + γ}{}_5\text{)ψ(x)}\text{ψ}\text{(1 ? γ}{}_5\text{)ψ(y)〉}$.     

A numerical study of Langevin QCD with dynamical quarks

QCD with four flavours of dynamical staggered quarks of mass ma=0.1 is simulated on a 4⁴ lattice, using two versions of the second order Langevin algorithm with bilinear noise: the naive version and one which compensates for the non-integrable term which appears to first order in the discrete Langevin time step size. Comparison with the results of an exact numerical computation of the fermion determinant reveals that these algorithms yield accurate results only at rather small values of the step size. The correction due to the non-integrable term is quantitatively unimportant for such step sizes.     

A study of the generalized Schwinger model in the Hamiltonian formulation

Semileptonic τ decays to two and three pions are considered. Based on recent data for the pion form factor a new prediction for Γ(τ→vπ^{- 0})/Γ(τ→vev_e) of 1.32±0.05 is derived. The chiral model-supplemented by vector dominance-is used to predict rate and differential distributions for the three pion mode in good agreement with present data. The parity violating asymmetry which has been predicted theoretically and observed experimentally is studied and found to be fairly insensitive towards the details of the model for the hadronic decays.     

Axial anomaly and index of the overlap hypercube operator

The overlap hypercube fermion is constructed by inserting a lattice fermion with hypercubic couplings into the overlap formula. One obtains an exact Ginsparg-Wilson fermion, which is more complicated than the standard overlap fermion, but which has improved practical properties and is of current interest for use in numerical simulations. Here we deal with conceptual aspects of the overlap hypercube Dirac operator. Specifically, we evaluate the axial anomaly and the index, demonstrating that the correct classical continuum limit is recovered. Our derivation is non-perturbative and therefore valid in all topological sectors. At the non-perturbative level this result had previously only been shown for the standard overlap Dirac operator with Wilson kernel. The new techniques which we develop to accomplish this also for hypercubic kernels are of a general nature and have the potential to be extended to overlap Dirac operators with even more general kernels.Received: 27 October 2003, Published online: 25 February 2004     

Light composite fermions in a dynamical subquark model of pregauge interactions

The masses of composite leptons and quarks are discussed in a “dynamical subquark model of pregauge interactions”. In this model, the leptons and quarks are made of a spinor and scalar subquark with equal mass, M, and the gauge bosons and Higgs scalar of the SU(3)_c×SU(2)_L×U(1)_Y model are made of a subquark-antisubquark pair. The SU(2)_L×U(1)_Y symmetry is spontaneously broken by the composite Higgs scalar and the (scalar) subquark mass parameter is in turn bounded as $\text{M > 5.4}\text{TeV}\text{(=2π(}\text{2}\text{G}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>F</mtext>}}{}^{\mathrm{?1}}\text{)}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{where}\text{G}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>F</mtext>}}$ is the Fermi coupling constant). The spontaneously generated mass of a lepton or quark, m_i⁽ⁿ⁾ (i = 1, 2; n = 1 ～ N_g), is calculated to be: $\text{m}{}_{\mathrm{i}}{}^{\mathrm{(n)}}\text{= r}{}_{\mathrm{i}}{}^{\mathrm{(n)}}\text{= r}{}_{\mathrm{i}}{}^{\mathrm{(n)}}\text{× (4+3N}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>g</mtext>}}\text{)α}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>e.m.</mtext>}}\text{(}\text{2}\text{G}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>F</mtext>}}{}^{\mathrm{?1}}\text{)}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{/3}\text{6}\text{(=0.35r}{}_{\mathrm{i}}{}^{\mathrm{(n)}}\text{(4+3N}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>g</mtext>}}\text{)}\text{GeV}\text{),}\text{where}\text{r}{}_{\mathrm{i}}{}^{\mathrm{(n)}}$ are the parameters satisfying that 0 ? r_i⁽ⁿ⁾ ? 1 and Σ (r_i⁽ⁿ⁾)² = 1;N_g is the total number of generations of the leptons and quarks; α_e.m. is the fine structure constant. The appearance of light composite fermions is related to a specific mechanism of generating global chiral symmetries of the leptons and quarks. Global symmetries of scalar subquarks yield chiral symmetries of the leptons and quarks. Our model turns out to satisfy 't Hooft's anomaly conditions on massless composite fermions.     

New overlap construction of Weyl fermions on the lattice

In a recent article Hasenfratz and von Allmen have suggested a fixed point action for two flavors of Weyl fermions on the lattice with gauge group SU(2). The block-spin transformation they use maps the chiral and vector symmetries of the underlying vector theory onto two equations of the Ginsparg–Wilson (GW) type. We show that an overlap Dirac operator can be constructed which solves both GW equations simultaneously. We discuss the properties of this overlap operator and its projection onto lattice Weyl fermions which seems to be free of artefacts, in particular the projection operators are independent of the gauge field.