We discuss the universal critical behavior in (2+1)-flavor QCD by analyzing lattice data from improved staggered fermions generated by the HotQCD Collaboration. We present recent results from two different lattice discretizations and various lattice spacings ($N_τ=6,8,12$) at fixed physical strange quark mass ($m_s$) but varying light quark mass ($m_l$). We find that the chiral order-parameter, i.e. the chiral condensate, shows the expected universal scaling that is associated with the critical point in the chiral limit already for light quark masses $m_l/m_s \lsim 0.05$. From an analysis of the disconnected chiral susceptibility we estimate a preliminary value of the QCD transition temperature.
A review of QCD-based theory approaches to study the heavy-flavor and exotic hadrons is given. The focus is on the results from lattice QCD and from lattice QCD complemented by effective field theories. Both approaches are first briefly introduced and applied in few examples. Then the status of various hadrons sectors is presented.
I present a method which can be used to locate the expected critical endpoint of the phase diagram of QCD with two light quark flavors. I illustrate the ideas on a suitable Random Matrix Model and show preliminary results in QCD
I discuss the important role that Lattice QCD plays in testing the Flavor sector of the Standard Model (SM) and in indirect searches of New Physics. I review in particular the Unitarity Triangle Analysis performed by the UTfit collaboration within and beyond the SM, presenting the recent accurate lattice results that enter the analyses. I conclude with a tentative outlook to the further progresses that we can expect in the next years from Flavor Lattice QCD.
Towards the feasibility study of the electroweak baryogenesis in realistic technicolor scenario, we investigate the phase structure of (2+Nf)-flavor QCD, where the mass of two flavors is fixed to a small value and the others are heavy. For the baryogenesis, an appearance of a first order phase transition at finite temperature is a necessary condition. Using a set of configurations of two-flavor lattice QCD and applying the reweighting method, the effective potential defined by the probability distribution function of the plaquette is calculated in the presence of additional many heavy flavors.…
We present lattice studies of the running coupling in 2-flavor QCD. The coupling at zero temperature (T=0) is extracted from Wilson loops while the coupling at finite temperature ($T\neq0$) is determined from Polyakov loop correlation functions.
We evaluate the $πN!N$, $πΣΣ$, $πΛΣ$, $KΛN$ and $K ΣN $ coupling constants and the corresponding monopole masses in lattice QCD with two flavors of dynamical quarks. The parameters representing the SU(3)-flavor symmetry are computed at the point where the three quark flavors are degenerate at the physical $s$-quark mass. In particular, we obtain $α\equiv F/(F+D)=0.395(6)$. The quark-mass dependences of the coupling constants are obtained by changing the $u$- and the $d$-quark masses. We find that the SU(3)-flavor parameters have weak quark-mass dependence and thus the SU(3)-flavor symmetry is …
Understanding flavor physics is one of the most important tasks of particle physics today, which is motivating an extraordinary experimental and theoretical investigational effort. Important progress in this field has already been achieved in the last few years, with Lattice QCD calculations playing an essential role in this effort. I will describe some lattice contributions to the studies of flavor physics by focusing particularly on the determination of the CKM matrix and on the study of CP violation in the Standard Model.
The running of renormalized quark masses is computed in lattice QCD with two flavors of massless O(a) improved Wilson quarks. The regularization and flavor independent factor that relates running quark masses to the renormalization group invariant ones is evaluated in the Schroedinger Functional scheme. Using existing data for the scale r_0 and the pseudoscalar meson masses, we define a reference quark mass in QCD with two degenerate quark flavors. We then compute the renormalization group invariant reference quark mass at three different lattice spacings. Our estimate for the continuum value …
We complete the non-perturbative calculations of the strange quark mass and the Lambda parameter in two flavor QCD by the ALPHA collaboration. The missing lattice scale is determined via the kaon decay constant, for whose chiral extrapolation complementary strategies are compared. We also give a value for the scale r_0 in physical units as well as an improved determination of the renormalization constant Z_A.
We evaluate the strangeness-conserving $N N$, $ΣΣ$, $ΞΞ$, $ΛΣ$ and the strangeness-changing $ΛN$, $ΣN$, $ΛΞ$, $ΣΞ$ axial charges in lattice QCD with two flavors of dynamical quarks and extend our previous work on pseudoscalar-meson-octet-baryon coupling constants so as to include $πΞΞ$, $KΛΞ$ and $KΣΞ$ coupling constants. We find that the axial charges have rather weak quark-mass dependence and the breaking in SU(3)-flavor symmetry is small at each quark-mass point we consider.
The finite temperature transition of QCD with two degenerate light quarks is studied on the lattice with a renormalization group improved gauge action and the Wilson quark action. We have made simulations on an $8^3\times 4$ lattice near the chiral transition point. It is shown that the chiral condensate which is the order parameter of chiral symmetry satisfies remarkably a scaling relation with the exponents of the three dimensional O(4) Heisenberg model. This indicates that the chiral transition in two-flavor QCD is of second order in the continuum limit.
This talk will focus on recent results by the MILC collaboration from simulations of light hadrons in 2+1 flavor lattice QCD. We have achieved high precision results in the pseudoscalar sector, including masses and decay constants, plus quark masses and Gasser-Leutwyler parameters from well controlled chiral perturbation theory fits to our data. We also show spectroscopy results for vector mesons and baryons.
Based on lattice simulations using highly improved staggered quarks for twelve-flavor QCD with several bare fermion masses, we observe a flavor-singlet scalar state lighter than the pion in the correlators of fermionic interpolating operators. The same state is also investigated using correlators of gluonic interpolating operators. Combined with our previous study, that showed twelve-flavor QCD to be consistent with being in the conformal window, we infer that the lightness of the scalar state is due to infrared conformality. This result shed some light on the possibility of a light composite …
I analyze the lattice simulation data of the Domain Wall Fermion in quaternion basis. As pointed out by Atiyah and Ward, the minimum action solution for SU(2) Yang-Mills fields in Euclidean 4-space correspond, via Penrose twistor transform, to algebraic bundles on the complex projective 3-space. Assuming dominance of correlation between the fermions on the domain walls via exchange of instantons, I extract parameters necessary for defining gauge fields of Atiyah-Ward ansatz. The QCD effective coupling in the infrared and the relation between the number of flavors and the infrared fixed point i…
We study the free energy of a static quark anti-quark pair at finite temperature in three flavor QCD with degenerate quark masses using N_tau=4 and 6 lattices with Asqtad staggered fermion action. The static free energy was calculated for different values of the quark mass and the entropy contribution at large distances has been extracted. We also calculate the renormalized Polyakov loop following the approach by Kaczmarek et al.
Considered as a function of the quark mases, two-flavor QCD depends on three parameters, including one that is CP violating. As the masses vary to unphysical values, regions of both first- and second-order phase transitions are expected. For non-degenerate quarks, non-perturbative effects leave individual quark mass ratios with a renormalization scheme dependence. This complicates matching lattice results with perturbative schemes and clarifies the tautology with attacking the strong CP problem via a vanishing up quark mass.
We study infrared conformality of the twelve-flavor QCD on the lattice. Utilizing the highly improved staggered quarks (HISQ) type action which is useful to study the continuum physics, we analyze the lattice data of the mass and the decay constant of a pseudoscalar meson and the mass of a vector meson as well at several values of lattice spacing and fermion mass. Our result is consistent with the conformal hypothesis for the mass anomalous dimension $γ_m \sim 0.4-0.5$.
We study the change in free and internal energy due to the presence of a heavy quark anti-quark pair in a thermal heat bath in QCD with 2-flavors of staggered quarks at finite temperature. We discuss string breaking below as well as screening above the transition. Similarities and differences to the quenched case are discussed.
Domain-wall fermions (DWF) is a lattice discretization for Dirac fields that preserves continuum-like chiral and flavor symmetries that are essential in hadron physics. RIKEN-BNL-Columbia (RBC) and UKQCD Collaborations have been generating sets of realistic 2+1-flavor dynamical lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) numerical ensembles with DWF quarks with strange mass set almost exactly at its physical value via reweighing and degenerate up and down mass set as light as practical. In this report the current status of the nucleon-structure calculations using these ensembles are summarized.
We present the first calculation within lattice QCD of excited light meson resonances with $J^{PC} = 1^{--}$, $2^{--}$ and $3^{--}$. Working with an exact SU(3) flavor symmetry, for the singlet representation of pseudoscalar-vector scattering, we find two $1^{--}$ resonances, a lighter broad state and a heavier narrow state, a broad $2^{--}$ resonance decaying in both $P$- and $F$-waves, and a narrow $3^{--}$ state. We present connections to experimental $ω^\star_J, ϕ^\star_J$ resonances decaying into $πρ$, $K\bar{K}^*$, $ηω$ and other final states.
Normalizing flows are generative machine learning models which can efficiently approximate probability distributions, using only given samples of a distribution. This architecture is used to interpolate the chiral condensate obtained from QCD simulations with five degenerate quark flavors in the HISQ action. From this a model for the probability distribution of the chiral condensate as function of lattice volume, quark mass and gauge coupling is obtained. Using the model, first order and crossover regions can be classified and the boundary between these regions can be marked by a critical mass…
Using the axial-vector coupling and the electromagnetic form factors of the D and D* mesons in 2+1 flavor Lattice QCD, we compute the D*Dπ, DDρand D*D*ρcoupling constants, which play an important role in describing the charm hadron interactions in terms of meson-exchange models. We also extract the charge radii of D and D* mesons and determine the contributions of the light and charm quarks separately.
I discuss the role of lattice QCD in testing the Standard Model and searching for physics beyond the Standard Model in the quark flavor sector. I first review the Standard Model CKM framework. I then present the current status of the CKM matrix, focusing on determinations of CKM matrix elements and constraints on the CKM unitarity triangle that rely on lattice QCD calculations of weak matrix elements. I also show the potential impact of improved lattice QCD calculations on the global CKM unitarity triangle fit. I then describe several hints of new physics in the quark flavor sector that rely o…
We present results for neutral D-meson mixing in 2+1-flavor lattice QCD. We compute the matrix elements for all five operators that contribute to D mixing at short distances, including those that only arise beyond the Standard Model. Our results have an uncertainty similar to those of the ETM collaboration (with 2 and with 2+1+1 flavors). This work shares many features with a recent publication on B mixing and with ongoing work on heavy-light decay constants from the Fermilab Lattice and MILC Collaborations.
I explore the rich phase diagram of two-flavor QCD as a function of the quark masses. The theory involves three parameters, including one that is CP violating. As the masses vary, regions of both first and second order transitions are expected. For non-degenerate quarks, non-perturbative effects cease to be universal, leaving individual quark mass ratios with a renormalization scheme dependence. This raises complications in matching lattice results with perturbative schemes and demonstrates the tautology of attacking the strong CP problem via a vanishing up quark mass.
We investigate the deconfining phase transition in SU(3) pure gauge theory and in full QCD with two flavors of staggered fermions. The phase transition is detected by measuring the free energy in presence of an abelian monopole background field. In the pure gauge case our finite size scaling analysis is in agreement with the well known presence of a weak first order phase transition. In the case of 2 flavors full QCD we find, using the standard pure gauge and staggered fermion actions, that the phase transition is consistent with weak first order, contrary to the expectation of a crossover for…
The heavy-quark expansion for inclusive semi-leptonic B decays introduces $\barΛ$ and $λ_1$, which are matrix elements in heavy-quark effective field theory. We review how they can be obtained from an analysis of the heavy quark mass dependence of heavy-light meson masses in lattice QCD. We present preliminary results for the bottom quark mass, $m_b$, using $\barΛ$ and $λ_1$ for the $B_s$ meson from a 2+1 sea-flavor unquenched calculation.
We review highlights of recent results on the hadron spectrum and flavor physics from lattice QCD. We also discuss recent rapid progress on the muon anomalous magnetic moment.
We draw the three-flavor phase diagram as a function of light- and strange-quark masses for both zero and imaginary quark-number chemical potential, using the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with an effective four-quark vertex depending on the Polyakov loop. The model prediction is qualitatively consistent with 2+1 flavor lattice QCD prediction at zero chemical potential and with degenerate three-flavor lattice QCD prediction at imaginary chemical potential.
We discuss the QCD critical point at finite density through the study of many flavor QCD, in which two light flavors and Nf massive flavors exist. Performing simulations of QCD with two flavors of improved Wilson fermions, we calculate probability distribution functions of many flavor QCD at finite temperature and density. The dynamical effects of massive flavors and the chemical potential are added using the reweighting technique. From the shape of the distribution functions, we determine the critical surface separating the first order transition and crossover regions in the parameter space o…
We perform lattice numerical simulations to study the phase transition of QCD at finite temperature to clarify the nature of the transition of massless two flavor QCD. We investigate QCD with two light and Nf heavy quarks instead of two-flavor QCD, and focus on the light quark mass dependence of the critical heavy mass, below which the transition is of first order. The heavy quarks are incorporated into two flavor configurations in the form of the hopping parameter expansion through the reweighting technique. The nature of the transition is identified by the shape of the constraint effective p…
Now that lattice QCD simulations are able to include effects of light sea quarks, the prospects are good for constraining quark flavor phenomenology. This review talk for particle physics experimentalists begins with an introduction intended to describe broadly the steps of lattice Monte Carlo simulations. The remainder of the talk is a brief survey of recent and ongoing calculations relevant for quark flavor physics.
We introduce the strange quark mass to the Sakai-Sugimoto model of holographic QCD. We compute mass shifts in the spectra of three-flavor baryons at the leading order in perturbation in quark masses. Comparison with experimental data shows an agreement only qualitatively.
We discuss the flavor dependence of the pressure and critical temperature calculated in QCD with 2, 2+1 and 3 flavors using improved gauge and staggered fermion actions on lattices with temporal extent Nt=4. For T > 2 Tc we find that bulk thermodynamics of QCD with 2 light and a heavier strange quark is well described by 3-flavor QCD while the transition temperature is closer to that of 2-flavor QCD. Furthermore, we present evidence that the chiral critical point of 3-flavor QCD, i.e. the second order endpoint of the line of first order chiral phase transitions, belongs to the universality cla…
We present the results from full QCD simulations with four flavors of light stag gered dynamical quarks on {\it {\it QCDSP}} supercomputer. Previous results are reproduced and the simulation reported here yields new results consistent with o ur previous runs. The hadron spectrum obtained with Wilson valence fermions reported here will allow us to determine if our earlier conclusions are independent of lattice form alism.
Scaling behavior is analyzed for the two-flavor QCD lattice gauge theory chiral transition. Leading scaling behavior and correction to leading scaling from lattice spacing effects are examined for the quark condensate. Scaling predictions under the assumption of quark mass dominance are tested for the longitudinal correlation length. Second order scaling behavior is consistent with present data.
We present possible indications for flavor separation during the QCD crossover transition based on continuum extrapolated lattice QCD calculations of higher order susceptibilities. We base our findings on flavor specific quantities in the light and strange quark sector. We propose a possible experimental verification of our prediction, based on the measurement of higher order moments of identified particle multiplicities. Since all our calculations are performed at zero baryochemical potential, these results are of particular relevance for the heavy ion program at the LHC.
We calculate the transition temperature in 2 and 3-flavor QCD using improved gauge and staggered fermion actions on lattices with temporal extent Nt=4. We find Tc=173(8)MeV and 154(8)MeV for nf=2 and 3, respectively. In the case of 3-flavor QCD we present evidence that the chiral critical point, i.e. the second order endpoint of the line of first order chiral phase transitions, belongs to the universality class of the 3d Ising model.
We study correlation functions of various static meson operators of size r at non-zero temperature in 2+1 flavor QCD, including Coulomb gauge fixed operators and Wilson loops with smeared spatial parts. The numerical calculations are performed on 24^3x6 lattices using highly improved staggered quark action. We discuss possible implications of our findings on the temperature dependence of the static energy of QQbar pair.
This note is based on our recent results on QCD with varying number of flavors of fundamental fermions. Topics include unusual, strong dynamics in the preconformal, confining phase, the physics of the conformal window and the role of ab-initio lattice simulations in establishing our current knowledge of the phases of many flavor QCD
We compute charmonium spectral functions in 2-flavor QCD on anisotropic lattices using the maximum entropy method. Our results suggest that the S-waves (J/psi and eta_c) survive up to temperatures close to 2Tc, while the P-waves (chi_c0 and chi_c1) melt away below 1.2Tc.
To study continuum limit of lattice QCD with many light quark flavors, we investigate the zero temperature phase structures of multi-flavor QCD. Currently a series of exploratory simulations are being performed with the number of quark flavors, $N_f $= 6, 8, and 10 on a set of lattice volumes for various quark masses. Here, we report on the current status of our simulation on a $8^4$ lattice.
I review the recent status of heavy flavor physics results from lattice QCD. In particular, I focus on the heavy-light decay constants, the bag parameters, the form factors, and the bottom quark mass. New progresses in theoretical methods are also reviewed.
We investigate baryon-baryon (BB) interactions in the 3-flavor full QCD simulations with degenerate quark masses for all flavors. The BB potentials in the orbital S-wave are extracted from the Nambu-Bethe-Salpeter wave functions measured on the lattice. We observe strong flavor-spin dependences of the BB potentials at short distances. In particular, a strong repulsive core exists in the flavor-octet and spin-singlet channel(the 8_s representation), while an attractive core appears in the flavor singlet channel (the 1 representation). We discuss the relation of such flavor-spin dependence with …
We discuss hybrid Monte Carlo algorithms for odd-flavor lattice QCD simulations. The algorithms include a polynomial approximation which enables us to simulate odd-flavor QCD in the framework of the hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm. In order to make the algorithms exact, the correction factor to the polynomial approximation is also included in an economical, stochastic way. We test the algorithms for $n_f=1$, 1+1 and 2+1 flavors and compare results with other algorithms.
We have calculated the step scaling function and the running coupling of QCD in the Schroedinger functional scheme with four flavors of O(a) improved Wilson quarks. Comparisons of our non-perturbative results with 2-loop and 3-loop perturbation theory as well as with non-perturbative data for only two flavors are made.
Common lore suggests that $N$-color QCD with massive quarks has no useful order parameters which can be non-trivial at zero baryon density. However, such order parameters do exist when there are $n_f$ quark flavors with a common mass and $d\equiv\gcd(n_f,N) > 1$. These theories have a $\mathbb Z_d$ color-flavor center symmetry arising from intertwined color center transformations and cyclic flavor permutations. The symmetry realization depends on the temperature, baryon chemical potential and value of $n_f/N$, with implications for conformal window studies and dense quark matter.
We present preliminary results of an ongoing lattice QCD computation of the spectrum of $D$ mesons and $D_s$ mesons and of charmonium using 2+1+1 flavors of twisted mass sea and valence quarks.
The CP-PACS and JLQCD Collaborations have been made systematic studies of lattice QCD carrying out both chiral and continuum extrapolations. Importance of dynamical quark effects has been clarified by a comparison of quenched QCD and two flavor full QCD simulations. In two flavor simulations, the dynamical effects of $u$ and $d$ quarks are taken into account, but the third quark $s$ is still treated in a quenched approximation. As the final step towards a fully realistic lattice simulation of QCD, two collaborations started a joint project of three flavor QCD, concentrating all big computers a…
We compare the performances of the exact one-flavor algorithm (EOFA) and the rational hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm (RHMC), for dynamical simulations of lattice QCD with domain-wall fermion.
We investigate the phase structure of (2+Nf)-flavor QCD, where two light flavors and Nf massive flavors exist, to discuss the feasibility of the electroweak baryogenesis in realistic technicolor scenario and to understand properties of finite density QCD. Because an appearance of a first order phase transition at finite temperature is a necessary condition for the baryogenesis, it is important to study the nature of finite temperature phase transition. Applying the reweighting method, the probability distribution function of the plaquette is calculated in the many-flavor QCD. Through the shape…
We present our progress report on 1+1+1 flavor QCD+QED simulation at the physical point. Calculations are carried out with 2+1 flavor QCD gauge configurations generated by the PACS-CS Collaboration. The dynamical QED effect and the up-down quark mass difference are incorporated by the reweighting technique. We also discuss some physics results.
