We present the nonperturbative computation of renormalization factors in the RI'-(S)MOM schemes for the QCD gauge field ensembles generated by the CLS (coordinated lattice simulations) effort with three flavors of nonperturbatively improved Wilson (clover) quarks. We use ensembles with the standard (anti-)periodic boundary conditions in the time direction as well as gauge field configurations with open boundary conditions. Besides flavor-nonsinglet quark-antiquark operators with up to two derivatives we also consider three-quark operators with up to one derivative. For the RI'-SMOM scheme results we make use of the recently calculated three-loop conversion factors to the modified minimal subtraction scheme. The present version of the paper contains an Addendum with additional analytical expressions and updated results.
We investigate the finite temperature behavior of nonperturbatively improved clover fermions on lattices with temporal extent N_t=4 and 6. Unfortunately in the gauge coupling range, where the clover coefficient has been determined nonperturbatively, the finite temperature crossover/transition occurs at heavy pseudoscalar masses and large pseudoscalar to vector meson mass ratios. However, on an N_t=6 lattice the thermal crossover for the improved fermions is much smoother than for unimproved Wilson fermions and no strange metastable behavior is observed.
Precise estimates of the nucleon charges $g_A$, $g_S$ and $g_T$ are needed in many phenomenological analyses of SM and BSM physics. In this talk, we present results from two sets of calculations using clover fermions on 9 ensembles of 2+1+1-flavor HISQ and 4 ensembles of 2+1-flavor clover lattices. We show that high statistics can be obtained cost-effectively using the truncated solver method with bias correction and the coherent source sequential propagator technique. By performing simulations at 4--5 values of the source-sink separation $t_{\rm sep}$, we demonstrate control over excited-stat…
The Fermilab Lattice and MILC collaborations have shown in one-loop lattice QCD perturbation theory that the renormalization constants of vector and axial-vector mixed clover-asqtad currents are closely related to the product of those for clover-clover and asqtad-asqtad (local) vector currents. To be useful for future higher precision calculations this relationship must be valid beyond one-loop and very general. We test its validity nonperturbatively using clover and Highly Improved Staggered (HISQ) strange quarks, utilising the absolute normalization of the HISQ temporal axial current. We fin…
We present a status report of our calculation of the electromagnetic form factor of the pion on the PACS-CS gauge field configurations generated using Iwasaki gauge action and Wilson-clover quark action for 2 + 1 flavors of light dynamical quarks. The technique of twiseted boundary conditon is employed to explore the form factor for small momentum transfer. The $q^2$ behavior of the form factor and its light quark mass dependence is examined.
In this work, we perform parameter tuning with dynamical anisotropic clover lattices using the Schrödinger functional and stout-smearing in the fermion field. We find that $ξ_R/ξ_0$ is relatively close to 1 in our parameter search, which allows us to fix $ξ_0$ in our runs. We proposed to determine the gauge and fermion anisotropy in a Schrödinger-background small box using Wilson loop ratios and PCAC masses. We demonstrate that these ideas are equivalent to but more efficient than the conventional meson dispersion approach. The spatial and temporal clover coefficients are fixed to the tree-lev…
We compare correlators for pseudoscalar and vector mesons made from valence strange quarks using the clover quark and highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) formalisms in full lattice QCD. We use fully nonperturbative methods to normalise vector and axial vector current operators made from HISQ quarks, clover quarks and from combining HISQ and clover fields. This allows us to test expectations for the renormalisation factors based on perturbative QCD, with implications for the error budget of lattice QCD calculations of the matrix elements of clover-staggered $b$-light weak currents, as well a…
In this work we perform the parameter tuning of three flavors of dynamical clover quarks on anisotropic lattices. The fermion action uses three-dimensional spatial stout-link smearing. The gauge anisotropy is determined in a small box with Schrödinger background using Wilson-loop ratios. The fermion anisotropy is obtained from studying the meson dispersion relation with antiperiodic boundary conditions in the time direction. The spatial and temporal clover coefficients are fixed to the tree-level tadpole-improved values, and we demonstrate that they satisfy the nonperturbative conditions as de…
We report our study on the critical endpoint of the finite temperature phase transition in 4-flavor QCD with Wilson-Clover fermions. Using the kurtosis intersection method, we determined the critical endpoint on lattices with $N_t$ = 4, 6 and 8. Our continuum extrapolated results show that the pseudo-scalar meson mass at the critical endpoint, $m_\mathrm{PS,E}$, for 4-flavor is clearly larger than that for 3-flavor. We also compared our results to those with staggered fermions and found that $m_\mathrm{PS,E}/T_E$ for 4-flavor with Wilson fermions might remain finite even in the continuum limit…
We present results for QCD with $N_f=2$ flavors of dynamical quarks using nonperturbatively improved Wilson fermions at finite temperature on $16^3 \times 8$ and $24^3 \times 10$ lattices. We determine the transition temperature in the range of quark masses $0.6 \lesssim m_π/m_ρ\leq 0.8$. After fixing the Maximal Abelian gauge we investigate the contribution of Abelian monopoles to the Polyakov loop, Polyakov loop susceptibility and confirm Abelian and monopole dominance in full QCD.
Starting in 2001, the MILC Collaboration began a large scale calculation of heavy-light meson decay constants using clover valence quarks on ensembles of three flavor configurations. For the coarse configurations, with a=0.12 fm, eight combinations of dynamical light and strange quarks have been analyzed. For the fine configurations, with a=0.09 fm, three combinations of quark masses are studied. Since we last reported on this calculation, statistics have been increased on the fine ensembles, and, more importantly, a preliminary value for the perturbative renormalization of the axial-vector cu…
We present results for pseudoscalar decay constants of heavy-light mesons using both quenched and N_f = 2 dynamical fermion configurations. A variety of fermion actions is investigated : Wilson, nonperturbative clover, and fat-link clover. For heavy quarks the Fermilab formalism is applied. In the quenched approximation, results with the nonperturbatively improved clover action of the Alpha collaboration allow us to study the systematic error of the continuum extrapolation from the Wilson action. In addition, we use quenched configurations to explore the effects of fattening. The lessons from …
We test a recently proposed improved lattice-fermion action, the fat link clover action, examining indicators of pathological small-quark-mass lattice artifacts ("exceptional configurations") on quenched lattices of spacing 0.12 fm and studying scaling properties of the light hadron spectrum for lattice spacing a=0.09 and 0.16 fm. We show that the action apparently has fewer problems with pathological lattice artifacts than the conventional nonperturbatively improved clover action and its spectrum scales just as well.
We present high-statistics estimates of the isovector charges of the nucleon from four 2+1-flavor ensembles generated using Wilson-clover fermions with stout smearing and tree-level tadpole improved Symanzik gauge action at lattice spacings $a=0.114$ and $0.080$ fm and with $M_π\approx 315$ and 200 MeV. The truncated solver method with bias correction and the coherent source sequential propagator construction are used to cost-effectively achieve $O(10^5)$ measurements on each ensemble. Using these data, the analysis of two-point correlation functions is extended to include four states in the f…
We study the finite-temperature phase structure and the transition temperature of QCD with two flavors of dynamical quarks on a lattice with the temporal size $N_t=4$, using a renormalization group improved gauge action and the Wilson quark action improved by the clover term. The region of a parity-broken phase is identified, and the finite-temperature transition line is located on a two-dimensional parameter space of the coupling ($β=6/g^2$) and hopping parameter $K$. Near the chiral transition point, defined as the crossing point of the critical line of the vanishing pion mass and the line o…
Background field methods provide an important nonperturbative formalism for the determination of hadronic properties which are complementary to matrix-element calculations. However, new challenges are encountered when utilising a fermion action exposed to additive mass renormalisations. In this case, the background field can induce an undesired field-dependent additive mass renormalisation that acts to change the quark mass as the background field is changed. For example, in a calculation utilising Wilson fermions in a uniform background magnetic field, the Wilson term introduced a field-depen…
We apply a recent proposal to speed up the Hybrid-Monte-Carlo simulation of systems with dynamical fermions to two flavor QCD with clover-improvement. For our smallest quark masses we see a speed-up of more than a factor of two compared with the standard algorithm.
We present results on an analysis of the decay constants f_B and f_Bs with two flavours of sea quark. The calculation has been carried out on 3 different bare gauge couplings and 4 sea quark masses at each gauge coupling, with m_pi/m_rho ranging from 0.8 to 0.6. We employ the Fermilab formalism to perform calculations with heavy quarks whose mass is in the range of the b-quark. A detailed comparison with a quenched calculation using the same action is made to elucidate the effects due to the sea quarks.
We present a summary of results of the joint CP-PACS and JLQCD project toward a 2+1 flavor full QCD simulation with the O(a)-improved Wilson quark formalism and the Iwasaki gauge action. Configurations were generated during 2002-2005 at three lattice spacings, a~0.076, 0.100 and 0.122 fm, keeping the physical volume constant at (2.0fm)^3. Up and down quark masses are taken in the range m_{PS}/m_V~0.6-0.78. We have completed the analysis for the light meson spectrum and quark masses in the continuum limit using the full configuration set. The predicted meson masses reproduce experimental values…
We report on our simulation of finite temperature lattice QCD with two flavors of ${\cal O}(a)$ Symanzik-improved fermions and ${\cal O}(a^2)$ Symanzik-improved glue. Our thermodynamic simulations were performed on an $8^3 \times 4$ lattice, and we have performed complementary zero temperature simulations on an $8^3 \times 16$ lattice. We compare our results to those from simulations with two flavors of Wilson fermions and discuss the improvement resulting from use of the improved action.
The perturbative and nonperturbative renormalisation of quark-antiquark operators in lattice QCD with two flavours of clover fermions is investigated within the research programme of the QCDSF collaboration. Operators with up to three derivatives are considered. The nonperturbative results based on the RI-MOM scheme are compared with estimates from one- and two-loop lattice perturbation theory.
By combining experimentally measured partial branching fractions for the semileptonic decays D to K l nu and D to pi l nu with lattice calculations of the form factors f_+^{D to K}(q^2) and f_+^{D to pi}(q^2), one can extract the CKM matrix elements |V_{cs}| and |V_{cd}|. We are calculating the form factors by using Fermilab charm and asqtad staggered light and strange quarks on 2+1 flavor asqtad staggered ensembles generated by the MILC Collaboration. We vary the light valence quark masses from 0.4m_s to 0.05m_s (m_s is the strange sea-quark mass), and the lattice spacings, from about 0.12 fm…
We calculate the magnetic dipole moment of the Delta baryon using a background magnetic field on 2+1-flavors of clover fermions on anisotropic lattices. We focus on the finite volume effects that can be significant in background field studies, and thus we use two different spatial volumes in addition to several quark masses.
We present high statistics ($\mathcal{O}(2\times 10^5)$ measurements) preliminary results on (i) the isovector charges, $g^{u-d}_{A,S,T}$, and form factors, $G^{u-d}_E(Q^2)$, $G^{u-d}_M(Q^2)$, $G^{u-d}_A(Q^2)$, $\widetilde G^{u-d}_P(Q^2)$, $G^{u-d}_P(Q^2)$, on six 2+1-flavor Wilson-clover ensembles generated by the JLab/W&M/LANL/MIT collaboration with lattice parameters given in Table 1. Examples of the impact of using different estimates of the excited state spectra are given for the clover-on-clover data, and as discussed in [1], the biggest difference on including the lower energy (close to…
We present a calculation of the leptonic decay-constant ratio $f_K/f_π$ in 2+1 flavor QCD. Our data set includes five lattice spacings and pion masses reaching down below the physical one. Special emphasis is placed on a careful study of all systematic uncertainties, especially the continuum extrapolation. Our result is perfectly compatible with the first-row unitarity constraint of the Standard Model.
We present preliminary results of light hadron spectroscopy using valence, tadpole-improved, Clover fermions on an ensemble of gauge configurations generated with 2 flavors of staggered fermions at a beta of 5.6. We compare the slope and intercept of the curve M_V vs. M_PS^2 for Clover and Wilson fermions. We show that a higher order chiral perturbation theory ansatz works very well for chiral extrapolations.
We report results on semileptonic $B\toπl\barν$ decay form factors near $q^2_{\rm max}$ using NRQCD heavy quark and clover light quark actions and currents improved through $O(αa)$. An inconsistency with the soft pion relation $f^0(q^2_{\rm max})= f_B/f_π$ found in a previous work is confirmed, and a possible solution with nonperturbative renormalization is discussed. We find that $f^+(q^2)$ is well described by the $B^*$ pole near $q^2_{\rm max}$, and its $1/M_B$ scaling is also consistent with the prediction of the pole dominance model.
Hadron masses are calculated in quenched lattice QCD in order to probe the scaling behavior of a novel fat-link clover fermion action in which only the irrelevant operators of the fermion action are constructed using APE-smeared links. Light quark masses corresponding to an m_pi / m_rho ratio of 0.35 are considered to assess the exceptional configuration problem of clover-fermion actions. This Fat-Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) fermion action provides scaling which is superior to mean-field improvement and offers advantages over nonperturbative improvement, including reduced exceptional configu…
We study exceptional modes of both the Wilson and the clover action in order to understand why quenched clover spectroscopy suffers so severely from exceptional configurations. We show that, in contrast to the case of the Wilson action, a large clover coefficient can make the exceptional modes extremely localized and thus very sensitive to short distance fluctuations. We describe a way to optimize the chiral behavior of Wilson-type lattice fermion actions by studying their low energy real eigenmodes. We find a candidate action, the clover action with fat links with a tuned clover term. We pres…
The volume dependence of the octet baryon masses and relations among them are explored with Lattice QCD. Calculations are performed with n_f=2+1 clover fermion discretization in four lattice volumes, with spatial extent L ~ 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 and 3.9 fm, with an anisotropic lattice spacing of b_s ~ 0.123 fm in the spatial direction, and b_t = b_s/3.5 in the time direction, and at a pion mass of m_pi ~ 390 MeV. The typical precision of the ground-state baryon mass determination is ~0.2%, enabling a precise exploration of the volume dependence of the masses, the Gell-Mann--Okubo mass relation, and of…
We investigate the perturbative and nonperturbative renormalization of composite operators in lattice QCD restricting ourselves to operators that are bilinear in the quark fields (quark-antiquark operators). These include operators which are relevant to the calculation of moments of hadronic structure functions. The nonperturbative computations are based on Monte Carlo simulations with two flavors of clover fermions and utilize the Rome-Southampton method also known as the RI-MOM scheme. We compare the results of this approach with various estimates from lattice perturbation theory, in particu…
We present an update of the finite temperature phase structure analysis for three flavor QCD. In the study the Iwasaki gauge action and non-perturvatively O($a$) improved Wilson-Clover fermion action are employed. We discuss finite size scaling analysis including mixings of magnetization-like and energy-like observables. Preliminary results are shown of the continuum limit of the critical point using newly generated data at Nt=8,10, including estimates of the critical pseudo-scalar meson mass and critical temperature.
We calculate, to 3 loops in perturbation theory, the bare $β$-function of QCD, formulated on the lattice with the clover fermionic action. The dependence of our result on the number of colors $N$, the number of fermionic flavors $N_f$, as well as the clover parameter $c_{SW}$, is shown explicitly. A direct outcome of our calculation is the two-loop relation between the bare coupling constant $g_0$ and the one renormalized in the MS-bar scheme. Further, we can immediately derive the three-loop correction to the relation between the lattice $Λ$-parameter and $g_0$, which is important in checks o…
The nucleon axial form factors -- axial $G_A$, induced pseudoscalar $\widetilde{G}_P$ and pseudoscalar $G_P$ -- have displayed large systematics in lattice QCD calculations. The major symptoms were the violation of the partially conserved axial current (PCAC) relation between the three form factors, and the underestimation of the induced pseudoscalar coupling $g_P^\ast$ and the axial charge radius $r_A$ compared to phenomenological estimates. The small $g_P^\ast$ was a consequence of the failure of the pion-pole dominance (PPD) hypothesis, especially at low $M_π^2$. The small charge radius $r_…
We study the nature of the finite temperature phase transition for three-flavor QCD. In particular we investigate the location of the critical endpoint along the three flavor symmetric line in the light quark mass region of the Columbia plot. In the study, the Iwasaki gauge action and the nonperturvatively O($a$) improved Wilson-Clover fermion action are employed. We newly generate data at $N_{\rm t}=12$ and set an upper bound of the critical pseudoscalar meson mass in the continuum limit $m_{\rm PS,E}\lesssim 110$MeV.
We investigate the critical endpoints of the finite temperature phase transition of QCD at zero chemical potential. We employ the renormalization-group improved Iwasaki gauge action and non-perturbatively O(a)-improved Wilson-clover fermion action. The critical endpoints are determined by using the intersection point of kurtosis, employing the multi-parameter, multi-ensemble reweighting method. We present results for the critical endline at $N_{\rm T}$ = 6 and the continuum extrapolation for the critical endpoint of the SU(3)-flavor symmetric point.
The research of strongly coupled beyond-the-standard-model theories has generated significant interest in non-abelian gauge field theories with different number of fermions in different representations. Motivated by the increased interest to various technicolor scenarios, we study the non-perturbative improvement of the Wilson-clover action with SU(2) gauge fields and 2 flavors of fermions in the fundamental and adjoint representations. The Sheikholeslami-Wohlert coefficients are fixed using Schroedinger functional boundary conditions. The adjoint representation theory is a candidate for a "mi…
Hadron masses are calculated in quenched lattice QCD on a variety of lattices in order to probe the scaling behavior of the Fat-Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) fermion action, a fat-link clover fermion action in which the purely irrelevant operators of the fermion action are constructed using APE-smeared links. The scaling analysis indicates FLIC fermions provide a new form of nonperturbative O(a) improvement where near-continuum results are obtained at finite lattice spacing.
We calculate the magnetic dipole moment of the Delta(1232) and Omega^- baryons with 2+1-flavors of clover fermions on anisotropic lattices using a background magnetic field. This is the first dynamical calculation of these magnetic moments using a background field technique. The calculation for Omega^- is done at the physical strange quark mass, with the result in units of the physical nuclear magneton mu_Omega^-= -1.93(8)(12) (where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic) compared to the experimental number: -2.02(5). The Delta has been studied at three unphysical quark m…
Nonperturbative lattice field theory simulations provide a systematic framework to investigate properties of conformal systems at strong couplings. These simulations can be performed using different lattice discretizations. Here we present numerical results for the step scaling beta function in SU(3) gauge theories with ten and twelve fundamental flavors. We calculate the renormalized $β$ function in the finite volume gradient flow renormalization scheme. Using Möbius domain wall fermions with Symanzik gauge action, Zeuthen gradient flow, and perturbative tree-level improvement, we implement a…
We calculate the perturbative value of the free energy in Lattice QCD, up to three loops. Our calculation is performed using Wilson gluons and the Sheikholeslami - Wolhert (clover) improved action for fermions. The free energy is directly related to the average plaquette. To carry out the calculation, we compute all relevant Feynman diagrams up to 3 loops, using a set of automated procedures in Mathematica; numerical evaluation of the resulting loop integrals is performed on finite lattice, with subsequent extrapolation to infinite size. The results are presented as a function of the fermion m…
We perform a nonperturbative tuning of the coefficients in the $O(a^2)$ improved action for staggered fermions. The mass splitting for the pions of different doubler flavor is used as a measure of the symmetry breaking effects introduced by $O(a^2)$ discretization errors. We find that the flavor nondegeneracy can be somewhat reduced but not eliminated by such a tuning, indicating the need for new terms in the action to reduce the nondegeneracy.
We calculate the critical value of the hopping parameter, $κ_c$, in Lattice QCD, up to two loops in perturbation theory. We employ the Sheikholeslami-Wohlert (clover) improved action for fermions and the Symanzik improved gluon action with 4- and 6-link loops. The quantity which we study is a typical case of a vacuum expectation value resulting in an additive renormalization; as such, it is characterized by a power (linear) divergence in the lattice spacing, and its calculation lies at the limits of applicability of perturbation theory. Our results are polynomial in $c_{SW}$ (clover parameter)…
We calculate the critical value of the hopping parameter, kappa_c, in Lattice QCD, up to two loops in perturbation theory. We employ the Sheikholeslami-Wohlert (clover) improved action for Wilson fermions and the Symanzik improved gluon action for 4- and 6-link loops. The quantity which we study is a typical case of a vacuum expectation value resulting in an additive renormalization; as such, it is characterized by a power (linear) divergence in the lattice spacing, and its calculation lies at the limits of applicability of perturbation theory. Our results are polynomial in c_{SW} (clover para…
The QCD phase diagram is studied in the lattice QCD simulation with the imaginary chemical potential approach. We employ a clover-improved Wilson fermion action of two-flavors and a renormalization-group improved gauge action, and perform the simulation at an intermediate quark mass on a $8^3\times 4$ lattice. The QCD phase diagram in the imaginary chemical potential $μ_I$ region is investigated by performing the simulation for more than 150 points on the $(β,μ_I)$ plane. We find that the Roberge-Weiss phase transition at $μ_I/T=π/3$ is first order and its endpoint is second order, which are i…
We compute the difference in the renormalization of flavor singlet and nonsinglet fermion bilinear operators, to two loops in perturbation theory. Our results are applicable to a rather wide class of lattice actions with Symanzik improved gluons, stout links and clover fermions, including the Twisted Mass and SLiNC actions. A more detailed presentation of our results, along with relevant references, will appear in a forthcoming publication.
Updates on results for the electric, magnetic and axial vector form factors are presented. The data analyzed cover high statistics measurements on 11 ensembles generated with 2+1+1 flavors of HISQ fermions by the MILC collaboration. The data cover the range $0.057\;\mathrm{fm} < a < 0.15\;\mathrm{fm}$ in lattice spacing, $135\;\mathrm{MeV} < M_π< 320\;\mathrm{MeV}$ in the pion mass and $3.3 < M_πL < 5.5 $ in the lattice size. Fits to control excited-state contamination use up to 3-states in the spectral decomposition of the 3-point functions. The simultaneous chiral-continuum-finite-volume fit…
Flavor diagonal nucleon charges using clover fermions on MILC HISQ ensembles
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory（劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室）；Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）；Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility（托马斯·杰斐逊国家加速器设施）；Los Alamos National Laboratory（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）；Ibsyn Scientific（Ibsyn科学公司）；Michigan State University（密歇根州立大学）；NVIDIA Corporation（英伟达公司）
We investigate the phase structure of 3-flavor QCD in the presence of finite quark chemical potential by using Wilson-Clover fermions. To deal with the complex action with finite density, we adopt the phase reweighting method. In order to survey a wide parameter region, we employ the multi-parameter reweighting method as well as the multi-ensemble reweighting method. Especially, we focus on locating the critical end point that characterizes the phase structure. It is estimated by the kurtosis intersection method for the quark condensate. For Wilson-type fermions, the correspondence between bar…
The hadron mass spectrum is calculated in lattice QCD using a novel fat-link clover fermion action in which only the irrelevant operators of the fermion action are constructed using smeared links. The simulations are performed on a 16^3 X 32 lattice with a lattice spacing of a=0.125 fm. We compare actions with n=4 and 12 smearing sweeps with a smearing fraction of 0.7. The n=4 Fat Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) action provides scaling which is superior to mean-field improvement, and offers advantages over nonperturbative O(a) improvement.
We report on our studies of the renormalization of flavor singlet quark bilinear operators in lattice QCD. The renormalization constants are determined non-perturbatively using gauge field ensembles with Nf=2 dynamical clover improved fermions. The renormalization is performed in the RI'-MOM scheme. The difference between flavor singlet and non-singlet quark bilinear operators is a disconnected contribution, which has to be evaluated by stochastic estimators. We compare our results for the running with perturbation theory.
We study the heavy baryon mass spectrum on gauge configurations that include 2+1 flavors of dynamical improved staggered quarks. A valence clover heavy quark is combined with two improved staggered light quark propagators to form baryons with different flavors. We are using MILC coarse gauge configurations with a lattice spacing of about 0.12 fm. In this preliminary investigation, we explore the chiral limit by studying two light sea quark masses, three different strange valence quark masses, and nine different light valence quark masses ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 times the nominal strange quark …
We calculate corrections to the fermion propagator and to the Green's functions of all fermion bilinear operators of the form $\barΨΓΨ$, to one-loop in perturbation theory. We employ the Wilson/clover action for fermions and a family of Symanzik improved actions for gluons. The novel aspect of our calculations is that they are carried out to second order in the lattice spacing, $O(a^2)$. Consequently, they have addressed a number of new issues, most notably the appearance of loop integrands with strong IR divergences (convergent only beyond 6 dimensions). Such integrands are not present in $O(…
We present a new lattice study of the discrete beta function for SU(3) gauge theory with Nf=8 massless flavors of fermions in the fundamental representation. Using the gradient flow running coupling, and comparing two different nHYP-smeared staggered lattice actions, we calculate the 8-flavor step-scaling function at significantly stronger couplings than were previously accessible. Our continuum-extrapolated results for the discrete beta function show no sign of an IR fixed point up to couplings of g^2~14. At the same time, we find that the gradient flow coupling runs much more slowly than pre…
This talk provides an update on the calculation of matrix elements of flavor diagonal axial, scalar and tensor quark bilinear operators between the nucleon ground state. The simulations are done using Wilson-clover fermions on a sea of eight 2+1+1-flavor HISQ ensembles generated by the MILC collaboration. We discuss the signal in the sum of the connected and disconnected contributions for the up, down and strange quarks, control over fits to remove excited state contamination, and the simultaneous chiral-continuum fit used to extract the charges.
The hadron mass spectrum is calculated in lattice QCD using a novel fat-link clover fermion action in which only the irrelevant operators in the fermion action are constructed using smeared links. The simulations are performed on a 16^3 x 32 lattice with a lattice spacing of a=0.125 fm. We compare actions with n=4 and 12 smearing sweeps with a smearing fraction of 0.7. The n=4 Fat-Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) action provides scaling which is superior to mean-field improvement, and offers advantages over nonperturbative 0(a) improvement, including a reduced exceptional configuration problem.
We study the phase structure of QCD at finite temperatures with two flavors of dynamical quarks on a lattice with the size $N_s^3 \times N_t=16^3 \times 4$, using a renormalization group improved gauge action and a clover improved Wilson quark action. The simulations are made along the lines of constant physics determined in terms of $m_{\rm PS}/m_{\rm V}$ at zero-temperature. We show preliminary results for the spatial string tension in the high temperature phase.
We investigate screening masses at both sides of the first order finite temperature transition with 3 quark flavors using the nonperturbatively improved clover fermion action and the Iwasaki gauge action. We have developed the method of hierarchical truncations with stochastic probing to accelerate the noise estimator for evaluating quark loops at every spatial lattice slices. At parameter values we study, the flavor singlet scalar meson has a screening mass about half of the pion screening mass. It becomes lighter as the system approaches the critical endpoint.
We present results for the mass spectrum of charm and bottom heavy baryons, using MILC coarse lattice configurations with 2+1 flavors. Clover heavy quark propagators with the Fermilab interpretation and improved staggered light quark propagators are used to construct two point functions with local operators for different flavor and spin states.
We present preliminary results for the heavy-light leptonic decay constants in the presence of three light dynamical flavors. We generate dynamical configurations with improved staggered and gauge actions and analyze them for heavy-light physics with tadpole improved clover valence quarks. When the scale is set by $m_ρ$, we find an increase of approximately 23% in $f_B$ with three dynamical flavors over the quenched case. Discretization errors appear to be small (of order 3% or less) in the quenched case but have not yet been measured in the dynamical case.
