Hadron masses in QCD with one quark flavour

One-flavour QCD – a gauge theory with SU(3) colour gauge group and a fermion in the fundamental representation – is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. The mass spectrum of the hadronic bound states is investigated in a volume with extensions of L≃4.4r₀ (≃ 2.2 fm) at two different lattice spacings: a≃0.37r₀ (≃ 0.19 fm) and a≃0.27r₀ (≃ 0.13 fm). The lattice action is a Symanzik tree-level improved Wilson action for the gauge field and an (unimproved) Wilson action for the fermion.     

Up quark mass in lattice QCD with three light dynamical quarks and implications for strong CP invariance

A standing mystery in the standard model is the unnatural smallness of the strong CP violating phase. A massless up quark has long been proposed as one potential solution. A lattice calculation of the constants of the chiral Lagrangian essential for the determination of the up quark mass, 2alpha(8)-alpha(5), is presented. We find 2alpha(8)-alpha(5)=0.29+/-0.18, which corresponds to m(u)/m(d)=0.410+/-0.036. This is the first such calculation using a physical number of dynamical light quarks, N(f)=3.     

A lattice Dirac operator for QCD with light dynamical quarks

In QCD chiral symmetry is explicitly broken by quark masses, the effect of which can be described reliably by chiral perturbation theory. Effects of explicit chiral symmetry breaking by the lattice regularisation of the Dirac operator, typically parametrised by the residual mass, should be negligible for almost all observables if the residual mass of the Dirac operator is much smaller than the quark mass. However, maintaining a small residual mass becomes increasingly expensive as the quark mass decreases towards the physical value and the continuum limit is approached. We investigate the feasibility of using a new approximately chiral Dirac operator with a small residual mass as an alternative to overlap and domain wall fermions for lattice simulations. Our Dirac operator is constructed from a Zolotarev rational approximation for the matrix sign function that is optimal for bulk modes of the hermitian kernel Dirac operator but not for the low-lying parts of its spectrum. We test our operator on various ³²³×64${32}^3\times 64$ lattices, comparing the residual mass and the performance of the Hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm at a similar lattice spacing and pion mass with a hyperbolic tangent operator as used by domain wall fermions. We find that our approximations have a significantly smaller residual mass than domain wall fermions at a similar computational cost, and still admit topological charge change.     

K-->pipi amplitudes from lattice QCD with a light charm quark

We compute the leading-order low-energy constants of the DeltaS=1 effective weak Hamiltonian in the quenched approximation of QCD with up, down, strange, and charm quarks degenerate and light. They are extracted by comparing the predictions of finite-volume chiral perturbation theory with lattice QCD computations of suitable correlation functions carried out with quark masses ranging from a few MeV up to half of the physical strange mass. We observe a DeltaI=1/2 enhancement in this corner of the parameter space of the theory. Although matching with the experimental result is not observed for the DeltaI=1/2 amplitude, our computation suggests large QCD contributions to the physical DeltaI=1/2 rule in the GIM limit, and represents the first step to quantify the role of the charm-quark mass in K-->pipi amplitudes. The use of fermions with an exact chiral symmetry is an essential ingredient in our computation.     

The strange quark mass from QCD sum rules

The strange quark mass is calculated from QCD sum rules for the divergence of the vector as well as axialvector current in the next-next-to-leading logarithmic approximation. The determination for the divergence of the axial-vector current is found to be unreliable due to large uncertainties in the hadronic parametrisation of the two-point function.From the sum rule for the divergence of the vector current, we obtain a value of (1 GeV)=189±32 MeV, where the error is dominated by the unknown perturbativeO( _s ³ ) correction. Assuming a continued geometric growth of the perturbation series, we findm _s =178±18 MeV. Using both determinations ofm _s , together with quark-mass ratios from chiral perturbation theory, we also give estimates of the light quark massesm _u andm _d.     

Leading logarithms of heavy quark masses in processes with light and heavy quarks

The matrix elements of operators containing both heavy quark (Q) and light quark (q) fields can contain large logarithms of the type ln(m_Q²/μ²), where μ is a typical QCD mass scale and m_Q is the heavy quark mass. We outline a method for summing leading logarithms of this type. We apply it to the decay constant f_M of a low lying pseudoscalar meson M with Q̄q flavor quantum numbers and predict the ratios of decay constants for mesons with different heavy flavors. We also apply it to a matrix element of a four-quark operator which is relevant for B⁰−B̄⁰ mixing.     

Hadronic corrections to QCD sum rules and light quark masses

A parametrization of theJ ^p =0^? hadronic continuum, in the framework of Extended PCAC, is discussed with emphasis on finite-width effects and on the constraints imposed by the correct threshold behavior of the pion spectral function. As an application light quark masses are calculated using both Hilbert and Laplace transform QCD sum rules. The results for the runing quark masses are: \((\bar m_u + \bar m_d )|_{1 Gev} = 16 \pm 2 MeV,(\bar m_u + \bar m_s )|_{1 Gev} = 199 \pm 27 MeV\) , and a ratio \(R \equiv 2(\bar m_u + \bar m_s )/(\bar m_u + \bar m_d )_{1 Gev} = 25 \pm 4\) .     

Constituent quark screening lengths in finite temperature lattice QCD

Landau gauge quark propagators are calculated in both the confined and the deconfined phases of QCD. We discuss the magnitude of the resulting screening lengths as well as aspects of chiral symmetry relevant to the quark propagator.     

Constituent quark masses from modified perturbative QCD

A recently proposed modified perturbative expansion for QCD incorporating gluon condensation is employed to evaluate the quark and gluon self-energy corrections in first approximation. The results predict mass values of 1/3 of the nucleon mass for the light quarks u, d, and s and a monotonously growing variation with the current mass. The only phenomenological input is that is evaluated up to order as a function of the unique parameter C defining the modified propagator, and then C is fixed to give a current estimate of . The light quarks u and d as a result are found to be confined and the s, c, b and t ones show damped propagation modes, suggesting a model for the large differences in stability between the nucleons and the higher resonances. The above properties of quark modes diverge from the fully confinement result following from the similar gluon propagator previously considered by Munczek and Nemirovski. On the other hand, the condensate effects on the gluon self-energy furnish a tachyonic mass shell as predicted by the Fukuda analysis of gluon condensation in QCD. Received: 28 September 2001 / Revised version: 15 November 2001 / Published online: 8 February 2002     

Meson screening masses at high temperature in quenched QCD with improved Wilson Quarks

We report on a lattice investigation of improved quenched Wilson fermions above and below the confinement-deconfinement phase transition. Results on meson screening masses as well as spatial wave functions are presented. Moreover, the meson dispersion relation is studied. Below the critical temperature we do not observe any significant temperature effect while above the data are consistent with a leading free quark behavior. Received: 2 April 2001 / Published online: 8 June 2001     

Incorporating dynamical light quarks in lattice QCD at finite temperature

Using the pseudo-fermion Monte Carlo method we investigate the chiral and the deconfinement phase transitions in the SU(3) gauge theory with dynamical staggered fermions on a 6³ × 2 lattice. The energy density of the gluonic sector ε_G, the average thermal Wilson loop |L| and the order parameter are found to have a rapid variation in the same range of β (=6/g²). The variation is similar to that observed in the quenched theory but is at a smaller value of β.     

Interquark potential with finite quark mass from lattice QCD

We present an investigation of the interquark potential determined from the q ?q Bethe-Salpeter (BS) amplitude for heavy quarkonia in lattice QCD. The q ?q potential at finite quark mass m(q) can be calculated from the equal-time and Coulomb gauge BS amplitude through the effective Schr?dinger equation. The definition of the potential itself requires information about a kinetic mass of the quark. We then propose a self-consistent determination of the quark kinetic mass on the same footing. To verify the proposed method, we perform quenched lattice QCD simulations with a relativistic heavy-quark action at a lattice cutoff of 1/a≈2.1 GeV in a range 1.0≤m(q)≤3.6 GeV. Our numerical results show that the q ?q potential in the m(q)→∞ limit is fairly consistent with the conventional one obtained from Wilson loops. The quark-mass dependence of the q ?q potential and the spin-spin potential are also examined.     

Extracting glueball masses from lattice QCD

A general transfer matrix approach to extracting bound-state masses from lattice field theory is presented. Applications are made to SU(2) and SU(3) pure gauge theories. Employing a source of variable strength in the Monte Carlo simulation provides an efficient technique. The lowest mass glueball is found to have a mass of 1.0 ± 0.3 GeV, consistent with other evaluations.     

The quest for solving QCD: Simulations at light quark masses

We present lattice QCD simulation results from the European Twisted Mass Collaboration (ETMC). In particular, we show the strange baryon spectrum, list a number of precisely determined low energy constants of chiral perturbation theory and provide a first account of simulations including the strange and charm degrees of freedom.