We compute the Kl3 and pion form factors using partially twisted boundary conditions. The twists are chosen so that the Kl3 form factors are calculated directly at zero momentum transfer (q^2=0), removing the need for a q^2 interpolation, while the pion form factor is determined at values of q^2 close to q^2=0. The simulations are performed on an ensemble of the RBC/UKQCD collaboration's gauge configurations with Domain Wall Fermions and the Iwaski gauge action with an inverse lattice spacing of 1.73(3) GeV. Simulating at a single pion mass of 330 MeV, we find the pion charge radius to be < r^2>_{330 MeV}=0.354(31) fm^2 which, using NLO SU(2) chiral perturbation theory, translates to a value of <r_π^2>=0.418(31) fm^2 for a physical pion. For the value of the Kl3 form factor, f_{Kπ}^+(q^2), determined directly at q^2=0, we find a value of f_{Kπ}^+(0)=0.9742(41) at this particular quark mass, which agrees well with our earlier result (0.9774(35)) obtained using the standard, indirect method.
We present an investigation of pion structure based on ETMC $N_f=2$ and $N_f=2+1+1$ twisted mass configurations at maximal twist. We compute the first moment of the quark momentum fraction of the pion, $\langle x \rangle$ and the electromagnetic form factor, $F_π(Q^2)$. For the latter, momentum is injected using twisted boundary conditions and the calculation is carried out directly at the physical pion mass. We find that our data are consistent with vector meson dominance and experimental data in the region of small momentum transfer. For $\langle x \rangle$, we find that our chirally and con…
The pion form factor is calculated using quenched twisted mass QCD with beta=6.0 and maximal twisting angle omega=pi/2. Two pion masses and several values of momentum transfer are considered. The momentum averaging procedure of Frezzotti and Rossi is used to reduce lattice spacing errors, and numerical results are consistent with the expected O(a) improvement.
The pion form factor is computed using quenched twisted mass QCD and the GMRES-DR matrix inverter. The momentum averaging procedure of Frezzotti and Rossi is used to remove leading lattice spacing artifacts, and numerical results for the form factor show the expected improvement with respect to the standard Wilson action. Although some matrix inverters are known to fail when applied to twisted mass QCD, GMRES-DR is found to be a viable and powerful option. Results obtained for the pion form factor are consistent with the published results from other O(a) improved actions and are also consisten…
We present an update of the results for pion mass and pion decay constant as obtained by the ETM collaboration in large scale simulations with maximally twisted mass fermions and two mass degenerate flavours of light quarks. We discuss the continuum, chiral and infinite volume extrapolation of these quantities as well as the extraction of low energy constants, and investigate possible systematic uncertainties.
We report on our computation of the pion transition form factor ${\cal F}_{P\rightarrow γ^*γ^*}$ from twisted mass lattice QCD in order to determine the numerically dominant light pseudoscalar pole contribution in the hadronic light-by-light scattering contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon $a_μ=(g-2)_μ$. The pion transition form factor is computed directly at the physical point. We present first results for our estimate of the pion-pole contribution with kinematic setup for the pion at rest.
Twisted mass fermions allow light quarks to be explored but with the consequence that there are mass splittings, such as between the neutral and charged pion. Using a direct calculation of the connected neutral pion correlator and stochastic methods to evaluate the disconnected correlations, we determine the neutral pion mass. We explore the dependence on lattice spacing and quark mass in quenched QCD. For dynamical QCD, we determine the sign of the splitting which is linked, via chiral PT, to the nature of the phase transition at small quark mass.
We study light-quark observables by means of dynamical lattice QCD simulations using two flavours of twisted mass fermions at maximal twist. We employ chiral perturbation theory to describe our data for the pion mass and decay constant. In this way, we extract precise determinations for the low-energy constants of the effective theory as well as for the light-quark mass and the chiral condensate.
Partially quenched Quantum Chromodynamics with Wilson fermions on a lattice is considered in the framework of chiral perturbation theory. Two degenerate quark flavours are associated with a chirally twisted mass term. The pion masses and decay constants are calculated in next-to-leading order including terms linear in the lattice spacing $a$.
We calculate finite volume effects on the pion masses and decay constant in twisted mass lattice QCD (tmLQCD) at finite lattice spacing. We show that the lighter neutral pion in tmLQCD gives rise to finite volume effects that are exponentially enhanced when compared to those arising from the heavier charged pions. We demonstrate that the recent two flavour twisted mass lattice data can be better fitted when twisted mass effects in finite volume corrections are taken into account.
Partially twisted boundary conditions are widely used for improving the momentum resolution in lattice computations of hadronic correlation functions. The method is however expensive since every additional twist requires computing additional propagators. We propose a novel variance reduction technique that exploits statistical correlations to reduce the overall cost for computing correlators with additional twist angles. We explain and demonstrate the method for meson 2pt and 3pt functions.
The possibility of imposing partially twisted boundary conditions in the lattice study of the resonance states is investigated by using the effective field theory (EFT) methods. In particular, it is demonstrated that - in certain cases - it is possible to use partial twisting even in the presence of the quark annihilation diagrams.
The pion masses and the pion decay constant are calculated to 1-loop order in twisted mass Wilson chiral perturbation theory, assuming a large pion mass splitting and tuning to maximal twist. Taking the large mass splitting at leading order in the chiral expansion leads to significant modifications in the chiral logarithms. For example, the result for the charged pion mass contains a chiral logarithm that involves the neutral pion mass instead of the charged one. Similar modifications appear in the results for the neutral pion mass and the decay constant. These new results are used in fits to …
In the framework of Wilson Chiral Perturbation Theory, we study the effect induced by a twisted Wilson term, as it appears in Twisted Mass QCD (with 2 degenerate quarks). In particular we consider the vacuum orientation and the pion masses. The computations are done to NLO both in the mass and in the lattice spacing (i.e. to O(a^2)). There are no restrictions on the relative size of lattice artifacts with respect to the physical mass, thus allowing, in principle, to bridge between the physical regime and the unphysical one, where lattice artifacts tend to dominate. The inclusion of O(a^2) latt…
We study the flavour breaking effects appearing in the Wilson twisted mass formulation of lattice QCD. In this quenched study, we focus on the mass splitting between the neutral and the charged pion, determining the neutral pion mass with a stochastic noise method to evaluate the disconnected contributions. We find that these disconnected contributions are significant. Using the Osterwalder-Seiler interpretation of the connected piece of the neutral pion correlator, we compute the corresponding neutral pion mass to study with more precision the scaling behaviour of the mass splitting.
We use chiral perturbation theory to investigate twisted and partially twisted boundary conditions which allow access to momenta other than integer multiples of 2pi/L on a lattice with spatial volume L^3. For K -> pi pi decays we show that the breaking of isospin symmetry by the twisted boundary conditions implies that the amplitudes cannot be determined in general. We find numerical evidence for the result that the finite volume effects of the boundary conditions are exponentially suppressed for quantities without final state interactions (meson masses and meson-to-vacuum matrix elements) in …
We investigate the use of partially twisted boundary conditions in a lattice simulation with two degenerate flavours of improved Wilson sea quarks. The use of twisted boundary conditions on a cubic volume (L^3) gives access to components of hadronic momenta other than integer multiples of 2*pi/L. Partial twisting avoids the need for new gluon configurations for every choice of momentum, while, as recently demonstrated, keeping the finite-volume errors exponentially small for the physical quantities investigated in this letter. In this study we focus on the spectrum of pseudo scalar and vector …
We study pion-pion scattering in partially-quenched twisted-mass lattice QCD using chiral perturbation theory. The specific partially-quenched setup corresponds to that used in numerical lattice QCD calculations of the $I=0$ scattering length. We study the discretization errors proportional to $a^2$, with $a$ the lattice spacing, and the errors that arise due to the use of Lüscher's two-particle quantization condition in a theory that is not unitary. We argue that the former can be as large as $\sim 100\%$, but explain how they can be systematically subtracted using a calculation of the $I=2$ …
We propose a method to study the nature of exotic hadrons by determining the wave function renormalization constant $Z$ from lattice simulations. It is shown that, instead of studying the volume-dependence of the spectrum, one may investigate the dependence of the spectrum on the twisting angle, imposing twisted boundary conditions on the fermion fields on the lattice. In certain cases, e.g., the case of the $DK$ bound state which is addressed in detail, it is demonstrated that the partial twisting is equivalent to the full twisting up to exponentially small corrections.
We consider the pion matrix elements of the isoscalar and isovector combinations of the vector and tensor twist-two operators that determine the moments of the various pion generalised parton distributions. Our analysis is performed using partially-quenched chiral perturbation theory. We work in the SU(2) and SU(4|2) theories and present our results at infinite volume and also at finite volume where some subtleties arise. These results are useful for extrapolations of lattice calculations of these matrix elements at small momentum transfer to the physical regime.
We investigate the utility of partially twisted boundary conditions in lattice calculations of meson observables. For dynamical simulations, we show that the pion dispersion relation is modified by volume effects. In the isospin limit, we demonstrate that the pion electromagnetic form factor can be computed on the lattice at continuous values of the momentum transfer. Furthermore, the finite volume effects are under theoretical control for extraction of the pion charge radius.
We present the results of an investigation of a mixed action approach of overlap valence and maximally twisted mass sea quarks. Employing a particular matching condition on the pion mass, we analyze the continuum limit scaling of the pion decay constant and the role of chiral zero modes of the overlap operator in this process. We employ gauge field configurations generated by the European Twisted Mass Collaboration with linear lattice size $L$ ranging from 1.3 to 1.9 fm. The continuum limit is taken at a fixed value of $L=1.3$ fm, employing three values of the lattice spacing and two values of…
We present physics results from simulations of QCD using $N_f = 2$ dynamical Wilson twisted mass fermions at the physical value of the pion mass. These simulations were enabled by the addition of the clover term to the twisted mass quark action. We show evidence that compared to previous simulations without this term, the pion mass splitting due to isospin breaking is almost completely eliminated. Using this new action, we compute the masses and decay constants of pseudoscalar mesons involving the dynamical up and down as well as valence strange and charm quarks at one value of the lattice spa…
We present results on the mass of the baryon octet and decuplet using two flavors of light dynamical twisted mass fermions. The strange quark mass is fixed to its physical value from the kaon sector in a partially quenched set up. Calculations are performed for light quark masses corresponding to a pion mass in the range 270-500 MeV and lattice sizes of 2.1 fm and 2.7 fm. We check for cut-off effects and isospin breaking by evaluating the baryon masses at two different lattice spacings. We carry out a chiral extrapolation for the octet baryons and discuss results for the Omega.
We present lattice results for the form factors relevant in the K -> pion and D -> pion semileptonic decays, obtained from simulations with two flavors of dynamical twisted-mass fermions and pion masses as light as 260 MeV. For K -> pion decays we discuss the estimates of the main sources of systematic uncertainties, including the quenching of the strange quark, leading to our final result f+(0) = 0.9560 (57) (62). Combined with the latest experimental data, our value of f+(0) implies for the CKM matrix element |Vus| the value 0.2267 (5) (20) consistent with the first-row CKM unitarity. For D …
We calculate the vacuum polarization tensor for pion masses from 480 MeV to 270 MeV using dynamical twisted mass fermions at a lattice spacing of 0.086 fm. We analyze the form of the polarization tensor on the lattice using the symmetries of twisted QCD and we study both finite size effects and lattice artifacts at a pion mass of 310 MeV. Results for the lowest order hadronic contribution to g-2 are presented and the impact of systematic errors is discussed.
In this talk we determine the phase diagram and pion spectrum for Wilson and twisted-mass fermions in the presence of non-degeneracy between the up and down quark and discretization errors. We find that the CP-violating phase of the continuum theory, which occurs for sufficiently large non-degeneracy, is continuously connected to the Aoki phase found in the lattice theory with degenerate quarks. Both for the Aoki and first-order scenarios, this results in a critical surface along which at least one of the pions is massless. In the pion spectrum, we focus mainly on the untwisted case, where the…
We investigate the thermal QCD transition with two flavors of maximally twisted mass fermions for a set of pion masses, 300 MeV \textless $m_π$ \textless 500 MeV, and lattice spacings $a$ \textless 0.09 fm. We determine the pseudo-critical temperatures and discuss their extrapolation to the chiral limit using scaling forms for different universality classes, as well as the scaling form for the magnetic equation of state. For all pion masses considered we find resonable consistency with O(4) scaling plus leading corrections. However, a true distinction between the O(4) scenario and a first orde…
We calculate the leading order hadronic contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment using twisted mass lattice QCD. The pion masses range from 330 MeV to 650 MeV. We use two lattice spacings, a=0.079 fm and 0.063 fm, to study lattice artifacts. Finite-size effects are studied for two values of the pion mass, and we calculate the disconnected contributions for four ensembles. Particular attention is paid to the dominant contributions of the vector mesons, both phenomenologically and from our lattice calculation.
We present results for the isospin-0 $ππ$ s-wave scattering length calculated in twisted mass lattice QCD. We use three $N_f = 2$ ensembles with unitary pion mass at its physical value, 240~MeV and 330~MeV respectively. We also use a large set of $N_f = 2 + 1 +1$ ensembles with unitary pion masses varying in the range of 230~MeV - 510~MeV at three different values of the lattice spacing. A mixed action approach with the Osterwalder-Seiler action in the valence sector is adopted to circumvent the complications arising from isospin symmetry breaking of the twisted mass quark action. Due to the r…
The chiral Lagrangian describing the low-energy behavior of N_f=2+1+1 twisted mass lattice QCD is constructed through O(a^2). In contrast to existing results the effects of a heavy charm quark are consistently removed, leaving behind a charmless 3-flavor Lagrangian. This Lagrangian is used to compute the pion and kaon masses to one loop in a regime where the pion mass splitting is large and taken as a leading order effect. In comparison with continuum chiral perturbation theory additional chiral logarithms are present in the results. In particular, chiral logarithms involving the neutral pion …
Results on the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon using twisted mass fermion configurations are presented. These include a gauge field ensemble simulated with two degenerate light quarks yielding a pion mass of around 130 MeV, as well as two ensembles that include strange and charm quarks in the sea yielding pion masses of 210 MeV and 373 MeV. Details of the methods used and systematic errors are discussed, such as noise reduction techniques and the effect of excited states contamination.
We present a first Wilson twisted mass fermion calculation of the matrix element between pion states of the twist-2 operator, which is related to the the lowest moment < x > of the valence quark parton distribution function in a pion. Using Wilson twisted mass fermions in the quenched approximation we demonstrate that < x > can be computed at small pseudoscalar meson masses down to values of order 250 MeV. We investigate the scaling behaviour of this physically important quantity by applying two definitions of the critical mass and observe a scaling compatible with the expected O(a^2) behaviou…
We show at the example of the matrix element between pion states of a twist-2, non-singlet operator that Wilson twisted mass fermions allow to compute this phenomenologically relevant quantitiy at small pseudo scalar masses of O(270 MeV). In the quenched approximation, we investigate the scaling behaviour of this observable that is derived from a 3-point function by applying two definitions of the critical mass and find a scaling compatible with the expected O(a^2) behaviour in both cases. A combined continuum extrapolations allows to obtain reliable results at small pion masses, which previou…
We present a general strategy aimed at generating $N_f=2+1+1$ configurations with quarks at their physical mass using maximally twisted mass fermions to ensure automatic $O(a)$ improvement, in the presence of a clover term tuned to reduce the charged to neutral pion mass difference. The target system, for the moment, is a lattice of size $64^3 \times 128$ with a lattice spacing $a\sim 0.08$ fm. We show preliminary results on the pion and kaon mass and decay constants.
We study the lattice cutoff ($a$) and quark mass dependences of pion masses and decay constants in the $N_f = 2$ twisted mass QCD, using the Wilson chiral perturbation theory to the next leading order (NLO). In order to investigate the region near zero quark mass, we introduce the power counting scheme where $O(a^2, am)$ terms are included in the tree level effective Lagrangian. At the NLO of this power counting scheme, we calculate the charged pion mass and decay constant as a function of the lattice cutoff as well as the twisted quark mass at the maximal twist. In this paper, we adopt two di…
In this contribution, results from $N_f=2$ lattice QCD simulations at one lattice spacing using twisted mass fermions with a clover term at the physical pion mass are presented. The mass splitting between charged and neutral pions (including the disconnected contribution) is shown to be around $20(20)~\mathrm{MeV}$. Further, a first measurement using the clover twisted mass action of the average momentum fraction of the pion is given. Finally, an analysis of pseudoscalar meson masses and decay constants is presented involving linear interpolations in strange and charm quark masses. Matching to…
We present a preliminary study of the pion, kaon and D-meson masses and decay constants in isosymmetric QCD, as well as a preliminary result for the light-quark renormalized mass. The analysis is based on the gauge ensembles produced by ETMC with $N_f=2+1+1$ flavours of Wilson-clover twisted mass quarks, spanning a range of lattice spacings from $\sim0.10$ to $0.07$ fm and include configurations at the physical pion point on lattices with linear size up to $L~\sim~5.6$~fm
We present our preliminary results on the lowest moment <x> of quark distribution functions of the pion using two flavor dynamical simulations with Wilson twisted mass fermions at maximal twist. The calculation is done in a range of pion masses from 300 to 500 MeV. A stochastic source method is used to reduce inversions in calculating propagators. Finite volume effects at the lowest quark mass are examined by using two different lattice volumes. Our results show that we achieve statistical errors of only a few percent. We plan to compute renormalization constants non-perturbatively and extend …
The electromagnetic and axial form factors of the nucleon are evaluated in twisted mass QCD with two degenerate flavors of light, dynamical quarks. The axial charge g_A, magnetic moment and the Dirac and Pauli radii are determined for pion masses in the range 300 MeV to 500 MeV.
We present results on the nucleon tensor form factors and first moment of the transversity distribution using maximally twisted mass fermions. We analyze two Nf=2+1+1 ensembles having pion masses of 213 MeV and 373 MeV with lattice spacing a=0.064 fm and a=0.082 fm, respectively. First results using an Nf=2 ensemble of twisted mass fermions with a clover term at a physical pion mass and lattice spacing a=0.094 fm are also presented. The renormalization function for the local tensor form factors is evaluated non-perturbatively with a perturbative subtraction of O(a^2)-terms, while for the first…
We discuss recent progress in studying Quantum Chromodynamics at finite temperature using $N_f=2+1+1$ Wilson twisted mass fermions. Particular interest is in QCD symmetries and their breaking and restoration. First, we discuss the behaviour of the $η'$ meson at finite temperature, which is tightly connected to the axial and chiral symmetries. The results suggest a small decrease of the $η'$ mass in the pseudo-critical region coming close to the non-anomalous contribution and subsequent growth at large temperatures. Second, we present the first results of lattice simulations of Quantum Chromody…
Simulations at physical quark masses are affected by the critical slowing down of the solvers. Multigrid preconditioning has proved to deal effectively with this problem. Multigrid accelerated simulations at the physical value of the pion mass are being performed to generate $N_f = 2$ and $N_f = 2 + 1 + 1$ gauge ensembles using twisted mass fermions. The adaptive aggregation-based domain decomposition multigrid solver, referred to as DD-$α$AMG method, is employed for these simulations. Our simulation strategy consists of an hybrid approach of different solvers, involving the Conjugate Gradient…
We study the properties of pions in twisted mass lattice QCD (with two degenerate flavors) using chiral perturbation theory (ChPT). We work to next-to-leading order (NLO) in a power counting scheme in which m_q ~ a Λ_QCD^2, with m_q the physical quark mass and a the lattice spacing. We argue that automatic O(a) improvement of physical quantities at maximal twist, which has been demonstrated in general if m_q >> a Λ_QCD^2, holds even if m_q ~ a Λ_QCD^2, as long as one uses an appropriate non-perturbative definition of the twist angle. We demonstrate this with explicit calculations, for arbitrar…
We present results on the masses of the low-lying baryons using ten ensembles of gauge configurations with $N_f =2+1+1$ dynamical twisted mass fermions, at three values of the lattice spacing, spanning a pion mass range from about 210 MeV to about 430 MeV. The strange and charm quark masses are tuned to approximately their physical values. We examine isospin symmetry breaking effects on the baryon mass and the dependence on the lattice spacing. After taking the continuum limit we use chiral perturbation theory to extrapolate to the physical vlaue of the pion mass for all forty baryons. We prov…
We present results for the leading order QCD correction to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon including the first two generations of quarks as dynamical degrees of freedom. Several light quark masses are examined in order to yield a controlled extrapolation to the physical pion mass. We analyse ensembles for three different lattice spacings and several volumes in order to investigate lattice artefacts and finite-size effects, respectively. We also provide preliminary results for this quantity for two flavours of mass-degenerate quarks at the physical value of the pion mass.
We present a determination of the gradient flow scales $w_0$, $\sqrt{t_0}$ and $t_0/w_0$ in isosymmetric QCD, making use of the gauge ensembles produced by the Extended Twisted Mass Collaboration (ETMC) with $N_f=2+1+1$ flavours of Wilson-clover twisted-mass quarks including configurations close to the physical point for all dynamical flavours. The simulations are carried out at three values of the lattice spacing and the scale is set through the PDG value of the pion decay constant, yielding $w_0=0.17383(63)$ fm, $\sqrt{t_0}=0.14436(61)$ fm and $t_0/w_0=0.11969(62)$ fm. Finally, fixing the ka…
We present a lattice calculation of the electromagnetic form factor of the pion obtained using the tree-level Symanzik improved gauge action with two flavors of dynamical twisted Wilson quarks. The simulated pion masses range approximately from 260 to 580 MeV and the lattice box sizes are chosen in order to guarantee that M L > 4. Accurate results for the form factor are obtained using all-to-all quark propagators evaluated by a stochastic procedure. The momentum dependence of the pion form factor is investigated up to values of the squared four-momentum transfer Q**2 ~ 0.8 GeV**2 and, thanks …
We present a lattice computation of the isospin-breaking corrections to pseudoscalar meson masses using the gauge configurations produced by the European Twisted Mass collaboration with $N_f = 2 + 1 + 1$ dynamical quarks at three values of the lattice spacing ($a \simeq 0.062, 0.082$ and $0.089$ fm) with pion masses in the range $M_π\simeq 210 - 450$ MeV. The strange and charm quark masses are tuned at their physical values. We adopt the RM123 method based on the combined expansion of the path integral in powers of the $d$- and $u$-quark mass difference ($\widehat{m}_d - \widehat{m}_u$) and of…
We calculate the s-wave pion-pion scattering length in the isospin I=2 channel in lattice QCD for pion masses ranging from 270 Mev to 485 Mev using two flavors of maximally twisted mass fermions at a lattice spacing of 0.086 fm. Additionally, we check for lattice artifacts with one calculation at a finer lattice spacing of 0.067 fm. We use chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order to extrapolate our results. At the physical pion mass, we find m_pi a_pipi(I=2)=-0.04385(28)(38) for the scattering length, where the first error is statistical and the second is our estimate of several sys…
The determination of $|V_{us}|$ from kaon semileptonic decays requires the value of the form factor $f_+(q^2=0)$ which can be calculated precisely on the lattice. We provide the one-loop partially quenched chiral perturbation theory expressions both with and without including the effects of staggered quarks for all form factors at finite volume and with partially twisted boundary conditions for both the vector current and scalar density matrix elements at all $q^2$. We point out that at finite volume there are more form factors than just $f_+$ and $f_-$ for the vector current matrix element bu…
We present first results on the $ρ$ resonance parameters obtained with $N_f=2+1+1$ Wilson twisted mass fermions at maximal twist. Using ensembles of the ETM collaboration, we provide results for two values of the lattice spacing and a range of pion mass values.
Performance of Low Mode Averaging on Twisted-Mass Fermion Ensembles at the physical pion mass point
Computation-based Science and Technology Research Center, The Cyprus Institute（塞浦路斯研究所计算科学与工程研究中心）；Department of Physics, University of Cyprus（塞浦路斯大学物理系）；Dipartimento di Fisica & INFN, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”（罗马托维尔加塔大学物理系及意大利国家核物理研究所）；INFN, Sezione di Roma Tre（意大利国家核物理研究所罗马第三分部）
We report about the current status of our ongoing study of the chiral limit of two-flavor QCD at finite temperature with twisted mass quarks. We estimate the pseudo-critical temperature $T_c$ for three values of the pion mass in the range of $m_\mathrm{PS} \simeq 300$ and $500 \mathrm{MeV}$ and discuss different chiral scenarios. Furthermore, we present first preliminary results for the trace anomaly, pressure and energy density. We have studied several discretizations of Euclidean time up to $N_τ=12$ in order to assess the continuum limit of the trace anomaly. From its interpolation we evalua…
We present a calculation of the scalar, vector and tensor pion and kaon form factors using one ensemble of two degenerate light, a strange and a charm quark ($N_f=2+1+1$) of maximally twisted mass fermions with clover improvement. The quark masses are chosen so that they produce a pion mass of about 265 MeV, and a kaon mass of 530 MeV. The lattice spacing of the ensemble is 0.093 fm and the lattice has a spatial extent of 3 fm. We use a rest frame, as well as a boosted frame to obtain the form factors for a wider and denser set of four-vector momentum transfer squared, $Q^2$. To assess and eli…
The latest results from the Twisted-Mass collaboration on disconnected diagrams at the physical value of the pion mass are presented. In particular, we focus on the sigma terms, the axial charges and the momentum fraction, all of them for the nucleon. A detailed error analysis for each observable follows, showing the strengths and weaknesses of the one-end trick. Alternatives are discussed.
We present a preliminary study toward a lattice determination of the vector and scalar form factors of the $B \to π\ell ν$ semileptonic decays. We compute the form factors relative to the transition between heavy-light pseudoscalar mesons, with masses above the physical D-mass, and the pion. We simulate heavy-quark masses in the range $m_c^{phys} < m_h < 2m_c^{phys}$. Lorentz symmetry breaking due to hypercubic effects is clearly observed in the data, and included in the decomposition of the current matrix elements in terms of additional form factors. We discuss the size of this breaking as th…
We present a determination of the ratio of kaon and pion leptonic decay constants in isosymmetric QCD (isoQCD), $f_K / f_π$, making use of the gauge ensembles produced by the Extended Twisted Mass Collaboration (ETMC) with $N_f = 2 + 1 + 1$ flavors of Wilson-clover twisted-mass quarks, including configurations close to the physical point for all dynamical flavors. The simulations are carried out at three values of the lattice spacing ranging from $\sim 0.068$ to $\sim 0.092$ fm with linear lattice size up to $L \sim 5.5$~fm. The scale is set by the PDG value of the pion decay constant, $f_π^{i…
I discuss the properties of pions in ``partially quenched'' theories, i.e. those in which the valence and sea quark masses, $m_V$ and $m_S$, are different. I point out that for lattice fermions which retain some chiral symmetry on the lattice, e.g. staggered fermions, the leading order prediction of the chiral expansion is that the mass of the pion depends only on $m_V$, and is independent of $m_S$. This surprising result is shown to receive corrections from loop effects which are of relative size $m_S \ln m_V$, and which thus diverge when the valence quark mass vanishes. Using partially quenc…
