In order to study the fate of mesons in thermal QCD at finite baryon chemical potential, we consider light mesonic correlation functions using the Taylor expansion to ${\cal O}((μ/T)^2)$, in both the hadronic and quark-gluon plasma phases. We use the FASTSUM anisotropic fixed-scale lattices with $N_f = 2+1$ flavours of Wilson fermion. We find that mesonic correlators are sensitive to finite-density corrections and that the second-order terms indicate the chiral crossover in the vector and axial-vector channels.
We investigate the high-temperature phase of QCD using lattice QCD simulations with $N_f = 2$ dynamical Möbius domain-wall fermions. On generated configurations, we study the axial $U(1)$ symmetry, overlap-Dirac spectra, screening masses from mesonic correlators, and topological susceptibility. We find that some of the observables are quite sensitive to lattice artifacts due to a small violation of the chiral symmetry. For those observables, we reweight the Möbius domain-wall fermion determinant by that of the overlap fermion. We also check the volume dependence of observables. Our data near t…
We present NLO results for thermal imaginary-time correlators in the vector and scalar channels as a function of the quark mass. The range of quark masses for which a non-relativistic approximation works in the temperature range considered is estimated, and charm quarks turn out to be a borderline case. Comparing with simulation data from fine lattices, we find good agreement in the vector channel but a substantial discrepancy in the scalar one. An explanation for the discrepancy is suggested in terms of physics of the quark-antiquark threshold region. Perturbative predictions for the bottom s…
We investigate the distance and temperatures scale for which the string in baryonic quark configuration approaches the limiting behavior of mesonic strings in pure Yang-Mills SU(3) lattice gauge theory. We calculate and compare the numerical values of the Polyakov loop correlators and the width profile of both diquark-quark $(QQ)Q$ and mesonic $Q\bar{Q}$ strings. We find the diquark-quark configuration to exhibit an identical behavior to the mesonic string for the potential and energy-density width profile for temperature near the end of QCD plateau. In the vicinity of the deconfinement point;…
We determine the leading order mesonic~($B_0$ and $F_0$) and baryonic~($m_0$, $D$ and $F$) SU(3) chiral perturbation theory low energy constants from lattice QCD. We employ gauge ensembles with $N_f=3$ (i.e., $m_u=m_d=m_s$) non-perturbatively improved Wilson fermions at six distinct values of the lattice spacing in the range $a\approx (0.039 - 0.098)$ fm, which constitute a subset of the Coordinated Lattice Simulations (CLS) gauge ensembles. The pseudoscalar meson mass $M_π$ ranges from around $430$ MeV down to $240$ MeV and the linear spatial lattice extent $L$ from $6.4\,M_π^{-1}$ to $3.3\,M…
We review recent progress in studying spectral functions for mesonic observables at finite temperatures, by analysis of imaginary time correlators directly calculated on isotropic lattices. Special attention is paid to the lattice artifacts present in such calculations.
We analyze temporal and spatial meson correlators in quenched lattice QCD at T>0. Below T_c we observe little change in the meson properties as compared with T=0. Above T_c we observe new features: chiral symmetry restoration and signals of plasma formation, but also indication of persisting mesonic (metastable) states and different temporal and spatial masses in the mesonic channels. This suggests a complex picture of QGP in the region 1 - 1.5 T_c.
We study the role of diquarks in light baryons through point to point baryon correlators. We contrast results from quenched simulations with ones with two flavors of dynamical overlap fermions. The scalar, pseudoscalar and axial vector diquarks are combined with light quarks to form color singlets. The quenched simulation shows large zero mode effects in correlators containing the scalar and pseudoscalar diquark. The two scalar diquarks created by gamma_5 and gamma_0gamma_5 lead to different behavior in baryon correlators, showing that the interaction of diquarks with the third light quark mat…
The static three-quark potential in arbitrary configuration of quarks is calculated analytically. It is shown to be in a full agreement with the precise numerical simulations in lattice QCD. The results of the work have important application in nuclear physics, as they allow to perform accurate analytic calculations of spectra of the baryons.
We present results for lattice QCD in the limit of infinite gauge coupling on a discrete spatial but continuous Euclidean time lattice. A worm type Monte Carlo algorithm is applied in order to sample two-point functions which gives access to the measurement of mesonic temporal correlators. The continuous time limit, based on sending $N_τ\rightarrow \infty$ and the bare anistotropy to infinity while fixing the temperature in a non-perturbative setup, has various advantages: the algorithm is sign problem free, fast, and accumulates high statistics for correlation functions. Even though the measu…
We consider spatial correlation lengths ξfor various QCD light quark bilinears at temperatures above a few hundred MeV. Some of the correlation lengths (such as that related to baryon density) coincide with what has been measured earlier on from glueball-like states; others do not couple to glueballs, and have a well-known perturbative leading-order expression as well as a computable next-to-leading-order correction. We determine the latter following analogies with the NRQCD effective theory, used for the study of heavy quarkonia at zero temperature: we find (for the quenched case) ξ^{-1} = 2 …
We present results for mesonic propagators in temporal and spatial directions at T below and above the deconfining transition in quenched QCD. Anisotropic lattices are used to get enough information in the temporal direction. We use the Wilson fermion action for light quarks and Fermilab action for heavy quarks.
We propose a novel algorithm for calculating multi-baryon correlation functions on the lattice. By considering the permutation of quarks (Wick contractions) and color/spinor contractions simultaneously, we construct a unified index list for the contraction where the redundancies in the original contraction are eliminated. We find that a significant reduction in the computational cost of correlators is achieved, e.g., by a factor of 192 for $^3$H and $^3$He nuclei, and a factor of 20736 for the $^4$He nucleus, without assuming isospin symmetry. A further reduction is possible by exploiting isos…
Using non-perturbative lattice method we studied hadronic screening correlators above and immediately below the deconfinement transition temperature, Tc, in the quenched approximation with lattice spacing of 1/(8T) using clover improved Wilson fermions. Simulations were performed at temperatures T /Tc = 0, 0.95 and 1.5. Mesonic screening correlators show no statistically significant thermal effects below Tc, and clear evidence for weakly interacting quarks above Tc . Baryon screening correlators yield similar physics above Tc, but show precursor effects for chiral symmetry restoration below Tc…
Field distributions generated by static quark-antiquark and QQQ sources are calculated analytically in the framework of the Field Correlator Method (FCM) using Gaussian (bilocal) correlator. In both cases the string consists mostly of longitudinal color electric field, while transverse electric field contributes locally less then 3%, in agreement with earlier lattice studies. In the QQQ case the profile of the Y shape was calculated for the first time and found to have a complicated structure with a deep well at the string junction position. Possible consequences of this form for the baryon st…
Deconfinement phase transition due to disappearance of confining colorelectric field correlators is described using nonperturbative equation of state. The resulting transition temperature $T_c(μ)$ at any chemical potential $μ$ is expressed in terms of the change of gluonic condensate $ΔG_2$ and absolute value of Polyakov loop $L_{fund} (T_c)$, known from lattice and analytic data, and is in good agreement with lattice data for $ΔG_2 \approx 0.0035 $ GeV$^4$. E.g. $T_c(0) =0.27; 0.19; 0.17$ GeV for $n_f=0,2,3$ respectively.
We calculate temporal correlators and their spectral functions with meson quantum numbers in the deconfined phase of QCD using the hard thermal loop (HTL) approximation for the quark propagator. Although this approach does not result in a complete next-to-leading order perturbative calculation it takes into account important medium effects such as thermal quark masses and Landau damping in the quark-gluon plasma. We show that both effects lead to competing modifications of the free mesonic correlation functions. We find that correlators in scalar channels are only moderately influenced by the …
The effectiveness of various dilution schemes in the evaluation of baryonic two-point functions is compared. The error of a representative set of observables as a function of the number of Dirac matrix inversions is used as a basis for comparison. To achieve an equivalent reduction in error, we demonstrate that an increase in the number of dilution projectors on a single noise source usually requires fewer inversions than the use of multiple noise sources. This exploratory study was performed on 100 quenched gauge configurations and will be applied to the calculation of low-lying hadron spectr…
We discuss the critical properies of the three-dimensional Gross-Neveu model at nonzero temperature and nonzero chemical potential. We also present numerical and analytical results for the in-medium interaction due to scalar meson exchange. Further, we discuss in-medium modifications of mesonic dispersion relations and wavefunctions.
Point to point vacuum correlators containing diquarks in the color anti-triplet representation are computed both in the quenched approximation and dynamical overlap simulations with two flavors. The scalar, pseudoscalar and axial vector diquarks are combined with light quarks to form color singlets. The scalar ("good") diquark channel shows a stronger attraction than the axial vector ("bad") channel in the quenched data set. The pseudoscalar diquark channel shows a finite volume zero mode artifact: the correlator becomes negative at large distance when the quark mass is small. By separating co…
We describe an approach for the efficient calculation of a large number of four-point correlation functions for various baryon-baryon (BB) channels, which are the primary quantities for studying the nuclear and hyperonic nuclear forces from lattice quantum chromodynamics. Using the four-point correlation function of a proton-$Λ$ system as a specific example, we discuss how an effective block algorithm significantly reduces the number of iterations. The effective block algorithm is applied to calculate 52 channels of the four-point correlation functions from nucleon$-$nucleon to $Ξ-Ξ$, in order…
We analyze temporal and spatial meson correlators in quenched lattice QCD at T>0. Above T_c we find different masses and (spatial) screening masses, signals of plasma formation, and indication of persisting mesonic excitations.
We investigate the net-baryon number fluctuations across the chiral phase transition at finite density in the strong coupling and chiral limit. Mesonic field fluctuations are taken into account by using the auxiliary field Monte-Carlo method. We find that the higher-order cumulant ratios, $Sσ$ and $κσ^2$, show oscillatory behavior around the phase boundary at $μ/T\gtrsim 0.2$, and there exists the region where the higher-order cumulant ratios are negative. The negative region of $κσ^2$ is found to shrink with increasing lattice size. This behavior agrees with the expectations from the scaling …
We present an investigation of gauge invariant smearing for Wilson fermions on a $24^3 \times 48$ lattice at $β= 6.2$. We demonstrate a smearing algorithm that allows a substantial improvement in the determination of the baryon spectrum obtained using propagators smeared at both source and sink, at only a small computational cost. We investigate the matrix of correlators constructed from local and smeared operators, and are able to expose excited states of both the mesons and baryons.
The spectrum of the negative-parity spin-1/2 $Λ$ baryons is studied using lattice QCD and hadronic effective theory in a unitarized coupled-channel framework. A direct comparison between the two approaches is possible by considering the hadronic effective theory in a finite volume and with hadron masses and mesonic decay constants that correspond to the situation studied on the lattice. Comparing the energy level spectrum and $SU(3)$ flavor decompositions of the individual states, it is found that the lowest two states extracted from lattice QCD can be identified with one of the two $Λ(1405)$-…
We calculate mesonic two-point functions in the epsilon-regime of two-flavor QCD on the lattice with exact chiral symmetry. We use gauge configurations of size 16^3 32 at the lattice spacing a \sim 0.11 fm generated with dynamical overlap fermions. The sea quark mass is fixed at \sim 3 MeV and the valence quark mass is varied in the range 1-4 MeV, both of which are in the epsilon-regime. We find a good consistency with the expectations from the next-to-leading order calculation in the epsilon-expansion of (partially quenched) chiral perturbation theory. From a fit we obtain the pion decay cons…
We investigate mesonic screening correlators at T=2T_c using the overlap Fermions in the quenched approximation, where T_c is the QCD phase transition temperature. Using lattices with temporal extent up to 8, we found that both pseudoscalar and vector correlators exhibit a nice $cosh$ behaviour, leading to a plateau behaviour in the local screening masses as a function of distance. The rho and pi masses so determined show very little variation with the lattice spacing a. This augurs well for the use of chiral Fermions, and further suggests the small deviations of these masses from the ideal ga…
We present an investigation of gauge-invariant smearing for Wilson fermions in quenched lattice QCD on a $24^3 \times 48$ lattice at $β= 6.2$. We demonstrate a smearing algorithm that allows a substantial improvement in the determination of the baryon spectrum obtained using propagators smeared at both source and sink, at only a small computational cost. We investigate the matrix of correlators constructed from local and smeared operators, and are able to expose excited states of both the mesons and baryons.
We study the Abelian flux tube profile of mesonic and the baryonic configurations of static quarks below and above the finite-temperature transition in $N_f=2$ full QCD. To reduce effects of ultra-violet fluctuations we measure Abelian distributions of the action density, the color-electric field and the monopole current after fixing to the maximally Abelian gauge. Changing the distance $R$ between quarks for fixed $T/T_c<1$, one can see a clear signal of string breaking for large $R$. The electric field becomes Coulomb-like and the circulating monopole current disappears. We study also the te…
The baryon static potential is calculated in the framework of field correlator method and is shown to match the recent lattice results. The effects of the nonzero value of the gluon correlation length are emphasized.
There exist two methods to study two-baryon systems in lattice QCD: the direct method which extracts eigenenergies from the plateaux of the temporal correlator and the HAL QCD method which extracts observables from the non-local potential associated with the tempo-spatial correlator. Although the two methods should give the same results theoretically, qualitatively different results have been reported. Recently, we pointed out that the separation of the ground state from the excited states is crucial to obtain sensible results in the former, while both states provide useful signals in the latt…
The color-flavor transformation for the unitary group (Zirnbauer 1996) is extended to the special unitary group. The resulting partition function is represented as sum over disconnected sectors characterized by a U(1)-charge. Application to low energy QCD on a lattice leads to a theory where the inverse number of colors appears as expansion parameter. We use a saddle point approximation to estimate the partition function both in the pure mesonic sector and in the case of a single baryon on a mesonic background.
Techniques to compute hadron properties from lattice QCD rely upon the limit of long time separation. For baryons, the signal-to-noise problem often restricts one to time separations that are not ideally long, and for which couplings to excited states can obstruct the isolation of ground-state baryon properties. We consider excited-state contamination in nucleon two- and three-point functions. Using chiral perturbation theory, we determine couplings to pion-nucleon and pion-delta excited states. In two-point functions, these contributions are small, in accordance with general properties of the…
We consider QCD at strong coupling with scalar quarks coupled to a chemical potential. Performing the link integrals we present a diagrammatic representation of the path integral weight. It is based on mesonic and baryonic building blocks, in close analogy to fermionic QCD. Likewise, the baryon loops are subject to a manifest conservation of the baryon number. The sign problem is expected to disappear in this representation and we do confirm this for three flavors, where a scalar baryon can be built and thus a dependence on the chemical potential occurs. For higher flavor number we analyse exa…
We present a study on ab-initio calculations of three-neutron correlators from Lattice QCD. We extend the method of baryon blocks to systems of three spacially displaced baryons. This allows the measurement of three-neutron $p$-wave correlators with total spin $S=1/2$ and $3/2$. In addition, we use automatic code generation that has high flexibility and allows for easy inclusion of additional channels in the future while optimizing the evaluation of contractions. Our measurements were performed on a newly generated $96\times 48^3$ Clover-Wilson gauge field ensemble with $m_π \approx 370\,\text…
Lattice QCD studies of the $Δ$ baryon resonance and the $K_0^\ast(700)$ and $a_0(980)$ meson resonances: the role of exotic operators in determining the finite-volume spectrum
