We study the impact of hypercubic (HYP) smearing on the size of taste breaking for staggered fermions, comparing to unimproved and to asqtad-improved staggered fermions. As in previous studies, we find a substantial reduction in taste-breaking compared to unimproved staggered fermions (by a factor of 4-7 on lattices with spacing $a\approx 0.1 $fm). In addition, we observe that discretization effects of next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion (${\cal O}(a^2 p^2)$) are markedly reduced by HYP smearing. Compared to asqtad valence fermions, we find that taste-breaking in the pion spectrum is reduced by a factor of 2.5-3, down to a level comparable to the expected size of generic ${\cal O}(a^2)$ effects. Our results suggest that, once one reaches a lattice spacing of $a\approx 0.09 $fm, taste-breaking will be small enough after HYP smearing that one can use a modified power counting in which ${\cal O}(a^2) \ll {\cal O}(p^2)$, simplify fitting to phenomenologically interesting quantities.
We extend our previous study of taste-symmetry breaking using HYP-smeared staggered fermions in two ways. First, we improve the statistics of a comparison of unimproved and HYP-smeared staggered fermions on quenched lattices with $a\approx 0.1 $fm. This allows us to obtain a signal for all pion tastes, rather than just a subset, and thus to make a complete comparison. In addition, it allows us to differentiate between wall and local sources. Second, we compare HYP-smeared valence quarks to asqtad valence quarks on 2+1 flavor unquenched MILC lattices. We find that taste breaking is substantiall…
We study the pion spectrum (and in particular taste-symmetry breaking within it) using HYP-smeared valence staggered fermions on the coarse and fine MILC lattices (which have asqtad staggered sea quarks). We focus on the dependence on lattice spacing and sea-quark mass. We also update our results on source dependence. Our main conclusion is that on the MILC fine lattices the appropriate power-counting for SU(3) staggered chiral perturbation theory may have discretization errors entering at next-to-leading order rather than at leading-order.
We present results for the pion multiplet spectrum calculated using both unimproved staggered fermions and improved HYP-smeared staggered fermions. In the case of unimproved staggered fermions, we observe (consistent with previous work) that ${\cal O}(a^2)$ taste symmetry breaking effects are large and comparable to the $\approx {\cal O}(p^2)$ contributions to their masses. Higher order ${\cal O}(a^2 p^2)$ effects are also substantial enough to be seen. For HYP-smeared staggered fermions, we find that taste breaking is much reduced. The ${\cal O}(a^2)$ effects are observable, but are noticeabl…
We present our results on meson and nucleon screening masses in finite temperature two flavour QCD using smeared staggered valence quarks and staggered thin-link sea quarks with different lattice spacings and quark masses. We investigate optimization of smearing by observing its effects on the infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) components of gluon and quark fields. The application of smearing to screening at finite temperature also provides a transparent window into the mechanism of the interplay of smearing and chiral symmetry. The improved hadronic operators show that above the finite temper…
We investigate a variant of hypercubic gauge link smearing where the SU(3) projection is replaced with a normalization to the corresponding unitary group. This smearing is differentiable and thus suitable for use in dynamical fermion simulations using molecular dynamics type algorithms. We show that this smearing is as efficient as projected hypercubic smearing in removing ultraviolet noise from the gauge fields. We test the normalized hypercubic smearing in dynamical improved (clover) Wilson and valence overlap simulations.
Staggered fermions with smeared links can have greatly improved chiral properties. In a recent paper we introduced a simple and effective method to simulate four flavors of staggered smeared link fermions. In this work we extend the four flavor method to two flavors. We define the two flavor action by the square root of the four flavor fermionic determinant and show that by using a polynomial approximation the two flavor action can be evaluated with the necessary accuracy. We test this method by studying the finite temperature phase structure with hypercubic smeared (HYP) link staggered action…
Smearing the gauge links of dynamical configurations removes small scale unphysical vacuum fluctuations und thus improves the chiral properties of lattice fermions. We present a new algorithm for the simulation of dynamical fermions coupled via smeared links based on the standard pure gauge overrelaxation and heatbath updatings. Smeared links play a fundamental role in making this algorithm effective. At fixed lattice spacing the computational cost of the algorithm has an extra volume factor due to the finite volume of the lattice region which can be updated. As the continuum limit is approach…
Smearing the gauge links of dynamical configurations removes small scale unphysical vacuum fluctuations and thus improves the chiral properties of lattice fermions. Recently we proposed the hypercubic smearing (HYP) that improves the flavor symmetry of staggered fermions by an order of magnitude with only minimal distortions at small distances. We describe a new algorithm to simulate dynamical HYP fermions based on the standard pure gauge overrelaxation and heatbath updates. The algorithm has been used to simulate four and two flavors of staggered fermions. Unlike standard dynamical simulation…
We present results for non-perturbative renormalization (NPR) factors for staggered fermion bilinears of arbitrary spin and taste. We use "covariant" bilinears which transform irreducibly under the lattice translation and rotation group, and thus do not mix. We form ~ 30 ratios which have no anomalous dimensions, and compare the NPR results to those from 1-loop perturbation theory. We also compare the absolute renormalization factors (which, in general, do have anomalous dimensions) to 1-loop perturbation theory. We use asqtad and HYP-smeared staggered valence fermions on the coarse MILC asqta…
Using Schroedinger functional techniques, we determine the coefficient of the clover term necessary for non-perturbative O(a) improvement of hypercubic smeared Wilson fermions on a quenched plaquette action background. Unlike for unsmeared Wilson fermions, the resulting clover coefficients are close to the tree-level value even at coarse lattice spacings, indicating the absence of large cutoff effects. A number of exploratory tests are also performed with the improved action.
We performed dynamical simulations with HYP smeared staggered fermions using the recently proposed partial-global stochastic Metropolis algorithm with fermion matrix reduction and determinant breakup improvements. In this paper we discuss our choice of the action parameters and study the autocorrelation time both with four and two fermionic flavors at different quark mass values on approximately 10 fm^4 lattices. We find that the update is especially efficient with two flavors making simulations on larger volumes feasible.
We present results for matching factors for bilinear operators composed of HYP-smeared staggered fermions and constructed using HYP-smeared fat links. The matching factors are calculated perturbatively at one-loop order. The new feature of our calculation compared to previous work on HYP-smeared staggered fermions is the use of the Symanzik-improved gluon propagator, which allows our results to be applied to our ongoing simulations based on configurations generated by the MILC collaboration. We address the issue of the relative efficiency of various improvement schemes in reducing one-loop cor…
We present preliminary results for $B_K$ calculated using improved staggered fermions with a mixed action (HYP-smeared staggered valence quarks and AsqTad staggered sea quarks). We investigate the effect of non-degenerate quarks on $B_K$ and attempt to estimate the ${\cal O}(a^2)$ effect due to non-Goldstone pions in loops. We fit the data to continuum partially quenched chiral perturbation theory. We find that the quality of fit for $B_K$ improves if we include non-degenerate quark mass combinations. We also observe, however, that the fitting curve deviates from the data points in the light q…
We present the 1-loop renormalization of the energy momentum tensor using the overlap fermion and a HYP-smeared Iwasaki gauge action. We also calculate the 1-loop matching coefficient that convert the lattice simulation results renormalized in the RI/MOM scheme to the $\overline{\textrm{MS}}$ scheme. The dependence of the renormalization on the gauge action and the number of HYP smearing steps are also investigated.
We present results for kaon mixing parameter $B_K$ calculated using HYP-smeared improved staggered fermions on the MILC asqtad lattices. We use three lattice spacings ($a\approx 0.12$, $0.09$ and $0.06\;$fm), ten different valence quark masses ($m\approx m_s/10-m_s$), and several light sea-quark masses in order to control the continuum and chiral extrapolations. We derive the next-to-leading order staggered chiral perturbation theory (SChPT) results necessary to fit our data, and use these results to do extrapolations based both on SU(2) and SU(3) SChPT. The SU(2) fitting is particularly strai…
In Euclidean four-dimensional SU(N) pure gauge theory, eigenvalue distributions of Wilson loop parallel transport matrices around closed spacetime curves show non-analytic behavior (a 'large-N phase transition') at a critical size of the curve. We focus mainly on an observable composed of traces of the Wilson loop operator in all totally antisymmetric representations, which is regularized with the help of smearing. By studying sequences of square Wilson loops on a hypercubic lattice with standard Wilson action, it is shown that this observable has a nontrivial continuum limit as a function of …
We study the finite temperature phase transition of four and two flavor staggered fermions with hypercubic smeared link actions. These preliminary studies suggest that the improved flavor symmetry of the fermionic action can have a significant effect on the finite temperature phase diagram.
We present results from simulations of two dynamical flavors of improved Wilson fermions with nHYP smeared gauge links. We demonstrate that the simulation is stable at a pseudo-scalar mass of 360MeV, a 2.1fm box and a lattice spacing of 0.13fm.
We present results for matching factors for staggered four-fermion operators constructed using HYP-smeared fat links both in the action and the operators. We use perturbation theory to calculate the matching factors and work to one-loop order. The new feaure of this work is the use of the Symanzik-improved gauge action, as opposed to the Wilson gauge action. Our results are needed for our ongoing calculation of weak matrix elements using HYP-smeared staggered valence quarks and operators on MILC lattices. We give explicit results for matching factors of the operator needed to calculate $B_K$. …
We study non-perturbative improvement in SU(3) lattice gauge theory coupled to fermions in the fundamental and two-index symmetric representations. Our lattice action is defined with hypercubic smeared links incorporated into the Wilson-clover fermion kernel. Using standard Schroedinger-functional techniques we estimate the clover coefficient Csw and find that discretization errors are much smaller than in thin-link theories.
We investigate the use of two kinds of staggered fermion operators, smeared and unsmeared. The smeared operators extend over a $4^4$ hypercube, and tend to have smaller perturbative corrections than the corresponding unsmeared operators. We use these operators to calculate kaon weak matrix elements on quenched ensembles at $β=6.0$, 6.2 and 6.4. Extrapolating to the continuum limit, we find $B_K(NDR, 2 GeV)= 0.62\pm 0.02(stat)\pm 0.02(syst)$. The systematic error is dominated by the uncertainty in the matching between lattice and continuum operators due to the truncation of perturbation theory …
We introduce a new smearing transformation, the hypercubic (HYP) fat link. The hypercubic fat link mixes gauge links within hypercubes attached to the original link only. Using quenched lattices at beta = 5.7 and 6.0 we show that HYP fat links improve flavor symmetry by an order of magnitude relative to the thin link staggered action. The static potential measured on HYP smeared lattices agrees with the thin link potential at distances r/a >= 2 and has greatly reduced statistical errors. These quenched results will be used in forthcoming dynamical simulations of HYP staggered fermions.
We give an update on our calculation of $B_K$ using HYP-smeared valence staggered quarks. We have results for $B_K$ at tree-level on several coarse MILC lattices ($a\approx 0.12 $fm) and one of the fine lattices ($a\approx 0.09 $fm), using 10 light valence quarks ranging down to $m_s^{\rm phys}/10$. We have generalized staggered chiral perturbation theory to our mixed action setup, and outline the results. We explain our present fitting strategy, and give some preliminary results.
Normalized hypercubic smearing improves the behavior of dynamical Wilson-clover fermions, but has the unwanted side effect that it can occasionally produce spikes in the fermion force. These spikes originate in the chain rule connecting the derivative with respect to the smeared links to the derivative with respect to the dynamical links, and are associated with the presence of dislocations in the dynamical gauge field. We propose and study an action designed to suppress these dislocations. We present evidence for improved performance of the hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm. A side benefit is impr…
We calculate the one-loop matching coefficients between continuum and lattice four-fermion operators for lattice operators constructed using staggered fermions and improved by the use of fattened links. In particular, we consider hypercubic fat links and SU(3) projected Fat-7 links, and their mean-field improved versions. We calculate only current-current diagrams, so that our results apply for operators whose flavor structure does not allow ``eye-diagrams''. We present general formulae, based on two independent approaches, and give numerical results for the cases in which the operators have t…
We present results for one-loop matching factors of four-fermion operators composed of HYP-smeared staggered fermions. We generalize previous calculations by using the tree-level improved Symanzik gauge action. These results are needed for our companion numerical calculation of $B_K$ and related matrix elements. We find that the impact on one-loop matching factors of using the improved gluon action is much smaller than that from the use of either HYP smearing or mean-field improvement. The one-loop coefficients for mean-field improved, HYP-smeared operators with the Symanzik gauge action have …
We discuss the impact of using one-loop matching on the calculation of $B_K$ using HYP-smeared improved staggered fermions. We give estimates of size of the truncation errors from the missing two-loop corrections.
We report on the measurement of the static potential and the scale r_0 from HYP-smeared Wilson loops in two flavour QCD. We analyse the quark mass dependence of the potential and r_0 at three lattice spacings. We also compare the QCD static potential around distance r_0 with the static potential obtained from potential models.
We present results for one-loop perturbative matching factors using bilinear operators composed of improved staggered fermions, using unimproved (Wilson) and improved (Symanzik, Iwasaki, and DBW2) gluon actions. We consider two fermions actions---HYP/$\bar{\text{Fat7}}$-smeared and "asqtad". The former is being used in calculations of electroweak matrix elements, while the latter have been used extensively by the MILC collaboration. We observe that using the improved gluon action leads to small reductions in the perturbative corrections, but that these reductions are smaller than those obtaine…
We investigate general properties of the eigenvalue spectrum for improved staggered quarks. We introduce a new chirality operator $[γ_5 \otimes 1]$ and a new shift operator $[1 \otimes ξ_5]$, which respect the same recursion relation as the $γ_5$ operator in the continuum. Then we show that matrix elements of the chirality operator sandwiched between two eigenstates of the staggered Dirac operator are related to those of the shift operator by the Ward identity of the conserved $U(1)_A$ symmetry of staggered fermion actions. We perform a numerical study in quenched QCD using HYP staggered quark…
We present preliminary results of matching factors of the four-fermion operators relevant to $B_K$, which are obtained using the non-perturbative renormalization (NPR) method in the RI-MOM scheme with HYP-smeared improved staggered fermions. We use the MILC asqtad coarse ($a \cong 0.12\,$fm) ensembles with $20^3 \times 64$ geometry and $am_{\ell}/am_s = 0.01/0.05$. We compare NPR results with those of one-loop perturbative matching.
We apply non-perturbative renormalization to bilinears composed of improved staggered fermions. We explain how to generalize the method to staggered fermions in a way which is consistent with the lattice symmetries, and introduce a new type of lattice bilinear which transforms covariantly and avoids mixing. We derive the consequences of lattice symmetries for the propagator and vertices. We implement the method numerically for hypercubic-smeared (HYP) and asqtad valence fermion actions, using lattices with asqtad sea quarks generated by the MILC collaboration. We compare the non-perturbative r…
We study the improvement of staggered fermions using hypercubically smeared (HYP) links. We calculate the strange quark mass and the kaon B-parameter, $B_K$, in quenched QCD on a $16^3 \times 64$ lattice at $β=6.0$. We find $m_s(\bar{\rm MS},2 {\rm GeV})=101.2\pm1.3\pm4 $MeV and $B_K(\bar{\rm MS},2 {\rm GeV}) = 0.578 \pm 0.018\pm 0.042$, where the first error is from statistics and fitting, and the second from using one-loop matching factors. The scale ($1/a=1.95$GeV) is set by $M_ρ$, and $m_s$ is determined using the kaon mass. Comparing to quenched results obtained using unimproved staggered…
We calculate one-loop matching factors for bilinear operators composed of improved staggered fermions. We compare the results for different improvement schemes used in the recent literature, all of which involve the use of smeared links. These schemes aim to reduce, though not completely eliminate, O(a^2) discretization errors. We find that all these improvement schemes substantially reduce the size of matching factors compared to unimproved staggered fermions. The resulting corrections are comparable to, or smaller than, those found with Wilson and domain-wall fermions. In the best case (``Fa…
We study the finite-volume effects in our calculation of $B_K$ using HYP-smeared improved staggered valence fermions. We calculate the predictions of both SU(3) and SU(2) staggered chiral perturbation theory at one-loop order. We compare these to the results of a direct calculation, using MILC coarse lattices with two different volumes: $20^3$ and $28^3$. From the direct calculation, we find that the finite volume effect is $\approx 2%$ for the SU(3) analysis and $\approx 0.9%$ for the SU(2) analysis. We also show how the statistical error depends on the number of measurements made per configu…
We calculate the perturbative corrections to fermion bilinears that are used in numerical simulations when extracting weak matrix elements using staggered fermions. This extends previous calculations of Golterman and Smit, and Daniel and Sheard. In particular, we calculate the corrections for non-local bilinears defined in Landau gauge with gauge links excluded. We do this for the simplest operators, i.e. those defined on a $2^4$ hypercube, and for tree level improved operators which live on $4^4$ hypercubes. We also consider gauge invariant operators in which the ``tadpole'' contributions are…
We report on recent progress in the calculation of $B_K$ using HYP-smeared improved staggered fermions on the MILC asqtad lattices. We have added measurements on fine ($a\sim 0.09 $fm) and superfine ($a\sim 0.06 $fm) ensembles at different values of the light sea quark mass ($a m_\ell$), as well as increased the statistics on some other ensembles. We find that the results on the fine lattices show a significantly stronger $am_\ell$ dependence than those on the superfine and coarse ($a\sim 0.12 $fm) lattices. We discuss different methods for accounting for these new results when doing the $a m_…
We study three sources of error in our calculation of $B_K$ using HYP-smeared staggered fermions on the MILC asqtad lattices. These are (1) dependence on the light sea quark mass; (2) finite volume effects; and (3) the impact of an order of magnitude increase in the number of measurements. Our main results are (1) the dependence on the light sea-quark mass is weaker than expected by naive dimensional analysis, (2) including finite volume effects in SU(2) staggered chiral perturbation theory fits leads to a very small change in $B_K$, of size $\approx 0.1%$, and (3) increasing the statistics on…
We present the results for $B_K$ calculated using HYP-smeared staggered fermions using lattices generated by the MILC collaboration using the asqtad staggered action. We have done the calculation on 8 ensembles of these lattices, including three different lattice spacings ($a=0.12, 0.09, 0.06$ fm). We fit the data to forms based on those predicted by SU(3) mixed-action partially-quenched staggered chiral perturbation theory. Our preliminary result is $ B_K(\text{NDR},μ=2\text{GeV}) = 0.528 \pm 0.011 \pm 0.048 $, where the first error is statistical and the second systematic. The error turns ou…
We explore how rotational invariance is systematically recovered from calculations on hyper-cubic lattices through the use of smeared lattice operators that smoothly evolve into continuum operators with definite angular momentum as the lattice-spacing is reduced. Perturbative calculations of the angular momentum violation associated with such operators at tree-level and at one-loop are presented in phi^4 theory and QCD. Contributions from these operators that violate rotational invariance occur at tree-level, with coefficients that are suppressed by O(a^2) in the continuum limit. Quantum loops…
We report updated results for $B_K$ using HYP-smeared staggered valence quarks on MILC asqtad lattices based on an analysis using SU(3) staggered chiral perturbation theory. The most important new feature of our data sample is the inclusion of a fourth ("ultrafine") lattice spacing. This improves the control over the continuum extrapolation and errors due our use of one-loop perturbative matching. We present a complete updated error budget, which leads to $B_K(\text{NDR}, μ= 2 \text{GeV}) = 0.5309 \pm 0.0051 \pm 0.0424$ and $\hat{B}_K = B_K(\text{RGI}) = 0.727 \pm 0.07 \pm 0.058$. The results …
We report new results for a frequently discussed gauge theory with twelve fermion flavors in the fundamental representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. The model, controversial with respect to its conformality, is important in non-perturbative studies searching for a viable composite Higgs mechanism Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). To resolve the controversy, we subject the model to opposite hypotheses inside and outside of the conformal window. In the first hypothesis we test chiral symmetry breaking ($χ{\rm SB}$) with its Goldstone spectrum, $F_π$, the $χ{\rm SB}$ condensate, and several…
We update our results for $B_K$ obtained using HYP-smeared staggered valence quarks on the MILC asqtad lattices. In the last year, we have added 5 new measurments on the fine ($a\approx 0.09\;$fm) ensembles, and 2 new measurements on the superfine ($a\approx 0.06\;$fm) ensembles. These allow a simultaneous extrapolation in $a^2$ and sea quark masses, reducing the corresponding systematic error significantly. Our updated result is $\hat{B}_K = 0.738 \pm 0.005 (\text{stat}) \pm 0.034 (\text{sys})$.
We report updated results for $B_K$ calculated using HYP-smeared staggered fermions on the MILC asqtad 2+1 flavor lattices. We use four different lattice spacings ($a \approx$ 0.12, 0.09, 0.06 and 0.045 fm) to control the continuum extrapolation. We use SU(2) staggered chiral perturbation theory to do the data analysis. We find that $B_K(\text{NDR}, μ=2 \text{GeV}) = 0.526 \pm 0.007 \pm 0.024$ and $\hat{B}_K = B_K(\text{RGI}) = 0.720 \pm 0.010 \pm 0.033$. Here the first error is statistical and the second systematic. The dominant source of error is that due to our use of a truncated (one-loop)…
We calculate the kaon mixing B-parameters for operators arising generically in theories of physics beyond the standard model. We use HYP-smeared improved staggered fermions on the $N_f = 2+1$ MILC asqtad lattices. Operator matching is done perturbatively at one-loop order. Chiral extrapolations are done using "golden combinations" in which one-loop chiral logarithms are absent. For the combined sea-quark mass and continuum extrapolation, we use three lattice spacings: $a \approx 0.045, 0.06$ and $0.09 \text{fm}$. Our results have a total error of 5-6%, which is dominated by the systematic erro…
We present results for $B_K$ calculated using HYP-smeared improved staggered fermions on the MILC asqtad lattices. In this report, the data is analyzed using the results of SU(2) staggered chiral perturbation theory (SChPT). We outline the derivation of the NLO SU(2) SChPT result, explain our fitting procedure, and outline how we estimate systematic errors. We also show the light sea-quark mass and lattice spacing dependence for both SU(2) and SU(3)-based analyses. Our preliminary result from the SU(2) analysis is $B_K(\text{NDR}, μ= 2 \text{GeV}) = 0.512 \pm 0.014 \pm 0.034$ and $\hat{B}_K = …
We report on recent progress in the calculation of $B_K$ using HYP-smeared staggered fermions on the MILC asqtad lattices. Our main focus is on the continuum extrapolation, which is done using (up to) four different lattice spacings---$a\approx$ 0.12, 0.09, 0.06 and 0.045 fm. Since Lattice 2010, we have reduced the statistical errors on the $a\approx 0.09\;$fm lattices by a factor of $\sim 3$, and roughly doubled the size of the $a\approx0.045\;$fm ensemble. We find that these improvements have a very significant impact on the continuum extrapolation, with the $a\approx 0.12\;$fm data lying ou…
We present results for the matrix elements of the additional $ΔS=2$ operators that appear in models of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), expressed in terms of four BSM $B$-parameters. Combined with experimental results for $ΔM_K$ and $ε_K$, these constrain the parameters of BSM models. We use improved staggered fermions, with valence HYP-smeared quarks and $N_f=2+1$ flavors of "asqtad" sea quarks. The configurations have been generated by the MILC collaboration. The matching between lattice and continuum four-fermion operators and bilinears is done perturbatively at one-loop order. We u…
