The current state of knowledge of the order parameters of the spontaneously broken chiral symmetry, the quark condensate and the pseudoscalar decay constant in the chiral limit, is briefly reviewed, based on available phenomenological fits and lattice QCD calculations. We argue that while the theory is pretty well understood in the two-flavour case, there is still a gap in the knowledge of the characteristics of the QCD vacuum in the three-flavour one. Our constraints for the three-flavour parameters obtained by a Bayesian statistical analysis of the decays of eta to three pions are presented. Possible implications of a new analysis of subthreshold parameters of pion-pion scattering is outlined.
The positive zeros of [2|1], [1|2] and the most general possible [2|2] Pade approximants whose Maclaurin series reproduce the presently known terms in the three-flavour QCD beta-function are all shown to correspond to ultraviolet fixed points.
The (light but not-so-light) strange quark may play a special role in the low-energy dynamics of QCD. The presence of strange quark pairs in the sea may have a significant impact of the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking : in particular large differences can occur between the chiral limits of two and three massless flavours (i.e., whether m_s is kept at its physical value or sent to zero). This may induce problems of convergence in three-flavour chiral expansions. To cope with such difficulties, we introduce a new framework, called Resummed Chiral Perturbation Theory. We exploit it to analyse…
We examine the isentropic QCD equation of state within a quasi-particle model being adjusted to first principle QCD calculations of two quark flavours. In particular, we compare with Taylor expansion coefficients of energy and entropy densities and with the isentropic trajectories describing the hydrodynamical expansion of a heavy-ion collision fireball.
Uses of QCD sum rules for heavy flavoured hadrons are discussed. "Standard" applications such as the determination of the $b$, $c$ quark masses, the calculation of $f_B$, $f_D$ and of the heavy-to-light form factors are overviewed. Furthermore, a new approach to calculate the $B\to ππ$ hadronic matrix elements from QCD light-cone sum rules is described.
The U(2)_R x U(2)_L symmetry of QCD with two massless flavours is subject to anomalies which affect correlation functions involving the singlet currents A^0_μor V^0_μ. These are relevant for pion-photon interactions, because - for two flavours - the electromagnetic current contains a singlet piece. We give the effective Lagrangian required for the corresponding low energy analysis to next-to-leading order, without invoking an expansion in the mass of the strange quark. In particular, the Wess-Zumino-Witten term that accounts for the two-flavour anomalies within the effective theory is written …
Previous work relating the flavour variation of the chiral order parameters $F_π$, $<\bar u u>$ and S-wave scattering data, based on chiral sum rules and chiral perturbation theory at order $p^4$, is extended to include $O(p^6)$ corrections. The finding of a significant decrease of these order parameters, particularly $<\bar u u>$, with the number of flavours increasing from $N_F=2$ to $N_F=3$ is confirmed, modulo an assumption on the convergence of the chiral expansion. The connection between scalar resonance physics and the phase structure of the chiral vacuum is also illustrated on the basi…
The vector and axial-vector two-point functions are calculated to next-to-next-to-leading order in Chiral Perturbation Theory for three light flavours. We also obtain expressions at the same order for the masses, $m_π^2$, $m_K^2$ and $m_η^2$, and the decay constants, $F_π$, $F_K$ and $F_η$. We present some numerical results after a simple resonance estimate of some of the new ${\cal O}(p^6)$ constants.
The interplay between flavour symmetries connecting Bs-->KK decays with the recently measured Bd--> K0 anti-K0 decay and QCD Factorisation opens new strategies to describe the decays Bs--> K0 anti-K0 and Bs--> K+ K- in the SM and in supersymmetry. A new relation, emerging from the sum-rule for the Bs--> K0 anti-K0 decay mode, is presented offering a new way to determine the weak mixing angle phi_s of the Bs system.
We modify the mesonic wavefunction by using a short distance scale r0 in analogy with Hydrogen atom and estimate the values of masses and decay constants of the open flavour charm mesons D, Ds and Bc within the framework of a QCD Potential Model. We also calculate leptonic decay widths of these mesons to study branching ratios and life time. The results are in good agreement with experimental and other theoretical values.
We derive a QCD sum rule for the flavour-singlet axial coupling constant $g_A^{(0)}$ from a two point correlation function of flavour-singlet axial vector currents in a one-nucleon state. In evaluating the correlation function by an operator product expansion we take into account the terms up to dimension 6. This correlation function receives an additional two-loop diagram which comes from an (anti-)instanton. If we do not include it, $g_A^{(0)}$ is estimated to be 0.8. However, the additional diagram due to instantons contributes negatively and reduces $g_A^{(0)}$ towards the experimental val…
We study the splitting in the screening mass of pions and the $η$-meson across the chiral crossover. This splitting is determined by the 't Hooft determinant. We use results for the renormalisation group scale dependence of the 't Hooft determinant obtained within the functional renomalisation group in quenched QCD with two flavours. The scale dependence of the 't Hooft determinant is mapped to its temperature dependence with the help of a Polyakov-quark-meson model. As a result we obtain the temperature dependence of the splitting in the screening mass of pions and the $η$-meson.
A chiral Lagrangian with $ SU(3) $ breaking and higher resonances is proposed. In this model, the $ SU(3) $ breaking structure in vector-pseudoscalar sector is realized with the decay constants of pseudoscalar mesons and the masses of vector mesons used as inputs. We examine whether the resulting $ SU(3) $ breaking effect in the charge radii of pseudoscalar mesons is consistent with the experimental facts.
Frequently, theoretical discussions of multiquark hadron states prove to be contaminated or even dominated by contributions of conventional hadrons. For the approach to QCD bound states in terms of QCD sum rules, we show how to get rid of all unwanted ordinary-hadron ballast by boiling down the traditional QCD sum-rule formalism to the nonconventional aspects in the focus of interest.
Multi-flavour (N_f>=3) Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) may exhibit instabilities due to vacuum fluctuations of sea q-bar q pairs. Keeping the fluctuations small would require a very precise fine-tuning of the low-energy constants L_4 and L_6 to L_4[crit](M_rho) = - 0.51 * 10^(-3), and L_6[crit](M_rho) = - 0.26 * 10^(-3). A small deviation from these critical values -- like the one suggested by the phenomenology of OZI-rule violation in the scalar channel -- is amplified by huge numerical factors inducing large effects of vacuum fluctuations. This would lead in particular to a strong N_f-depe…
We propose a new method to study mixed symmetric multiplets of baryons in the context of the $1/N_c$ expansion approach. The simplicity of the method allows to better understand the role of various operators acting on spin and flavour degrees of freedom. The method is tested on two and three flavours. It is shown that the spin and flavour operators proportional to the quadratic invariants of SU$_S$(2) and SU$_F$(3) respectively are dominant in the mass formula.
We analyse B_{d,s} -> K(*)0 K(*)0 modes within the SM, relating them in a controlled way through SU(3)-flavour symmetry and QCD-improved factorisation. We propose a set of sum rules for such penguin-mediated decays to constrain some CKM angles. We determine B_s -> KK branching ratios and CP-asymmetries as functions of A_{dir}(B_d -> K0 \bar{K}0). Applying the same techniques to B_{d,s}-> K*0 \bar{K}*0, we outline strategies to determine the B_s mixing angle.
We present positivity bounds, derived from the principles of analyticity, unitarity and crossing symmetry, that constrain the low-energy constants of chiral perturbation theory. Bounds are produced for 2, 3 or more flavours in meson-meson scattering with equal meson masses, up to and including next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO), using the second and higher derivatives of the amplitude. We enhance the bounds by using the most general isospin combinations posible (or higher-flavour counterparts thereof) and by analytically integrating the low-energy range of the discontinuities. In addition, w…
We argue that no notion of flavour is necessary when performing amplitude calculations in perturbative QCD with massless quarks. We show this explicitly at tree-level, using a flavour recursion relation to obtain multi-flavoured QCD from one-flavour QCD. The method relies on performing a colour decomposition, under which the one-flavour primitive amplitudes have a structure which is restricted by planarity and cyclic ordering. An understanding of SU(3)_c group theory relations between QCD primitive amplitudes and their organisation around the concept of a Dyck tree is also necessary. The one-f…
Over the last few years a theoretical treatment for the weak decays of heavy-flavour hadrons has been developed that is genuinely based on QCD. Its methodology is described as it applies to total lifetimes, and the underlying theoretical issues are discussed. Theoretical expectations are compared with present data. One discrepancy emerges: the beauty baryon lifetime appears to be significantly shorter than predicted. The ramifications of those findings are analyzed in detail, and future refinements are described.
We investigate the phase diagram of QCD at small chemical potentials, ie, when chiral and flavour symmetry breaking involves the pairing of a quark and an antiquark. The phase diagram of two-flavour QCD at small chemical potentials involves chiral symmetry restoration and charged pion condensation. We extend previous studies of the topology of the phase diagram, in sections with high degree of symmetry, to the physical case of fully broken flavour symmetry, using generic thermodynamic arguments. We argue that the extension is unique and present the result. In three flavour QCD the phase diagra…
We present a new analysis of B_{d,s}->KK modes within the SM, relating them in a controlled way through SU(3)-flavour symmetry and QCD-improved factorisation. We propose a set of sum rules for B_{d,s}-> K^0{\bar K}^0 observables. We determine B_s-> KK branching ratios and CP-asymmetries as functions of A_{dir}(B_d-> K^0{\bar K}^0), pointing out a conflict between BR(B_s-> K+K-) in the SM and data. Finally, we predict the amount of U-spin breaking between B_d-> pi+pi- and B_s-> K+K-.
Charm production in pp collisions is considered in the framework of perturbative QCD. The values of two parameters, the charm quark mass $m_c$ and the QCD scale mu^2, are determined from the comparison of the theoretical calculations with experimental data. The RHIC data on charm and beauty production are compared with the k_T-factorization approach predictions and with standard NLO QCD. The calculated results underestimate the STAR Collaboration data. The role of possible nuclear effects is discussed. The predictions for LHC energies are also given.
We investigate the flavour decomposition of the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon, based on the chiral quark-soliton model ($χ$QSM) with symmetry-conserving quantisation. We consider the rotational $1/N_c$ and linear strange-quark mass ($m_s$) corrections. We discuss the results of the flavour-decomposed electromagnetic form factors in comparison with the recent experimental data. In order to see the effects of the strange quark, we compare the SU(3) results with those of SU(2). We finally discuss the transverse charge densities for both unpolarised and polarised nucleons. The transv…
Chiral symmetry breaking may exhibit significantly different patterns in two chiral limits: N_f=2 massless flavours (m_u=m_d=0, m_s physical) and N_f=3 massless flavours (m_u=m_d=0=m_s=0). Such a difference may arise due to vacuum fluctuations of s-bar{s} pairs related to the violation of the Zweig rule in the scalar sector, and could yield a numerical competition between contributions counted as leading order and next-to-leading in the chiral expansions of observables. We recall and extend Resummed Chiral Perturbation Theory (ReChPT), a framework that we introduced previously to deal with suc…
We present a summary update of the QCD spectral sum rule (QSSR) results for the running and {\it perturbative pole} quark masses, the $f_D$ and $f_B$ leptonic decay constants, the heavy-to-light and heavy-to-heavy exclusive transition-form factors. Analytic expressions of these latter quantities are presented, which give a deeper understanding of their $q^2$- and infinite mass-behaviours. A short comparison of the QSSR results with alternative approaches is done.
We derive the lepton spectrum in semileptonic beauty decays from a nonperturbative treatment of QCD; it is based on an expansion in $1/m_Q$ with $m_Q$ being the heavy flavour quark mass. The leading corrections arising on the $1/m_Q$ level are completely expressed in terms of the difference in the mass of the heavy hadron and the quark. Nontrivial effects appear in $1/m_Q^2$ terms affecting mainly the endpoint region; they are different for meson and baryon decays as well as for beauty and charm decays.
Recent developments in the uses of QCD spectral sum rules (QSSR) for heavy flavours are summarized and updated. QSSR results are compared with the existing data and with the ones from alternative approaches.
We present a new analysis of B_d,s -> KK modes within the SM, relating them in a controlled way through SU(3)-flavour symmetry and QCD-improved factorisation. We propose a set of sum rules for B_d,s -> K^0 \bar K^0 observables. We determine B_s -> KK branching ratios and CP-asymmetries as functions of A_dir(B_d -> K^0 \bar K^0), with a good agreement with current experimental measurements of CDF. Finally, we predict the amount of U-spin breaking between B_d -> pi+ pi- and B_s -> K+K-.
Flavour-exotic tetraquark mesons, by definition bound states of two quarks and two antiquarks of four mutually different quark flavours, are, for given Lorentz features, subject to two incompatible constraints: On the one hand, within quantum chromodynamics a formation of compact tetraquark states is most easily envisaged by merging two colour-antisymmetric two-quark clusters, a diquark and an antidiquark. This path, however, leads to merely a single tetraquark state of chosen Lorentz characteristics. On the other hand, in the limit of the number of colour degrees of freedom growing beyond bou…
We apply the MC@NLO approach to the process of heavy flavour hadroproduction. MC@NLO is a method for matching next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD calculations and parton shower Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, with the following features: fully exclusive events are generated, with hadronisation according to the MC model; total rates are accurate to NLO; NLO results for distributions are recovered upon expansion in $\as$; hard emissions are treated as in NLO computations while soft/collinear emissions are handled by the MC simulation, with the same logarithmic accuracy as the MC; matching between the …
For one flavour, we observe that standard chiral random matrix models are schematic variants of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) models whether in vacuum or matter. The ensuing thermodynamics is that of constituent quarks, with mean-field universality in general. For two and three flavours non-standard chiral random matrix models with $U_A(1)$ breaking are suggested. For three flavours the transition is reminiscent of the isotropic-nematic transition in liquid crystals.
We present results of a simulation of 2 flavour QCD on a $16^3\times4$ lattice using p4-improved staggered fermions with bare quark mass $m/T=0.4$. Derivatives of the thermodynamic grand canonical partition function $Z(V,T,μ_u,μ_d)$ with respect to chemical potentials $μ_{u,d}$ for different quark flavours are calculated up to sixth order, enabling estimates of the pressure and the quark number density as well as the chiral condensate and various susceptibilities as functions of $μ_{u,d}$ via Taylor series expansion. Results are compared to high temperature perturbation theory as well as a had…
We present a theoretical review of the possibilities offered by heavy flavour tagging in testing QCD features in 4-jet events at LEP1. Attention is focused mainly on the properties of the angular variables which are used in the experimental analyses to measure the colour factors of the strong interactions. We also comment on a possible settlement of the ongoing controversy about the existence in LEP1 data of SUSY events involving light gluinos. Integrated and differential rates of interest to phenomenological analyses are given and various tagging procedures are discussed.
After inserting the heavy quark mass dependence into QCD partonic evolution equations, we determine the mean charged hadron multiplicity and second multiplicity correlators of jets produced in high energy collisions. We thereby extend the so-called dead cone effect to the phenomenology of multiparticle production in QCD jets and find that the average multiplicity of heavy-quark initiated jets decreases significantly as compared to the massless case, even taking into account the weak decay products of the leading primary quark. We emphasize the relevance of our study as a complementary check of…
The extention of the chiral soliton approach to hypernuclei - strange or heavy flavoured - becomes more reliable due to success in describing of other properties of nuclei, e.g. the symmetry energy of nuclei with atomic numbers up to ~30. The binding energies of the ground states of light hypernuclei with strangeness S=-1 have been described in qualitative agreement with data. The existence of charmed or beautiful hypernuclei and Theta-hypernuclei (strange, charmed or beautiful) with large binding energy is expected within same approach.
Within QCD, colourless states may be constructed corresponding to exotic matter outside of the traditional quark model. Experiments have recently observed tetraquark and pentaquark states, but no definitive hybrid meson signals have been observed. With the construction of the PANDA experiment at FAIR, and with full commissioning of the GlueX experiment at JLab expected to be completed this year, the opportunity for the observation of hybrid mesons has greatly increased. However, theoretical calculations are necessary to ascertain the identity of any experimental resonances that may be observed…
After an introduction to chiral perturbation theory, the effective field theory of the standard model at low energies, a brief overview is given of applications to light-flavour physics. Three topics in the strong interactions of pseudoscalar mesons are then discussed in some detail: loops and chiral logs, pion-pion scattering and isospin violation.
I report on recent progress and future prospects for lattice QCD calculations relevant for flavour physics and CP violation. I will focus on lattice studies that incorporate realistic vacuum polarization effects, i.e., with n_f=2+1 sea quarks.
We construct the effective chiral Lagrangian for chiral perturbation theory in the mesonic odd-intrinsic-parity sector at order $p^6$. The Lagrangian contains 24 in principle measurable terms and no contact terms for the general case of $N_f$ light flavours, 23 terms for three and 5 for two flavours. In the two flavour case we need a total of 13 terms if an external singlet vector field is included. We discuss and implement the methods used to reduce to a minimal set. The infinite parts needed for renormalization are calculated and presented as well.
Cross sections for supersymmetric particles production at hadron colliders have been extensively studied in the past at leading order and also at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD. The radiative corrections include large logarithms which have to be resummed to all orders in the strong coupling constant in order to get reliable perturbative results. In this work, we perform a first and extensive study of the resummation effects for supersymmetric particle pair production at hadron colliders. We focus on Drell-Yan like slepton-pair and slepton-sneutrino associated production in minimal s…
We calculate the A-dependence of charm and beauty production cross sections on nuclear targets taking into account the difference of quark and gluon distributions in free nucleons and in nucleus. At comparatively low energies, if $σ\sim A^α$, the value of $α$ is slightly higher than unity. With the growth of the initial energy the value of $α$ decreases and becomes smaller than unity. We also calculate the values of $α$ for different Feynman-$x$ of the produced $Q\overline{Q}$ pair and obtain that they decrease significantly in the beam fragmentation region.
There now exist several theoretical technologies for treating weak decays of heavy flavour hadrons that are genuinely based on QCD without having to invoke a deus ex machina. I focus on one of those, which employs an expansion in inverse powers of the heavy quark mass. It has developed into a rather mature framework incorporating many subtle aspects of quantum field theory. I describe its methodology for treating fully integrated decay rates as well as differential distributions, in particular energy spectra; the importance of a new type of sum rules, the SV sum rules, is emphasized. First pra…
Nuclear structure functions and cross-sections for heavy flavour production in lepton-nucleus collisions are investigated in the low $x$ region accessible now or in the near future. The scattering on a heavy nucleus is described by the sum of fan diagrams of BFKL pomerons, which is exact in the high-colour limit. The initial condition for the evolution at $x=0.01$ is taken from a saturation model, which reproduces the experimental data on the proton. The $A$ dependence of the structure functions is well described by a power factor $A^α$, with $α$ reaching values as low as 1/2 at extremely low …
We propose that in QCD with dynamical quarks, colour deconfinement occurs when an external field induced by the chiral condensate strongly aligns the Polyakov loop. This effect sets in at the chiral symmetry restoration temperature T-chi and thus makes deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration coincide. The predicted singular behaviour of Polyakov loop susceptibilities at T-chi is shown to be supported by finite temperature lattice calculations.
We present a calculation of the finite volume corrections to meson masses and decay constants in three flavour Partially Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory (PQChPT) through two-loop order in the chiral expansion for the flavour-charged (or off-diagonal) pseudoscalar mesons. The analytical results are obtained for three sea quark flavours with one, two or three different masses. We reproduce the known infinite volume results and the finite volume results in the unquenched case. The calculation has been performed using the supersymmetric formulation of PQChPT as well as with a quark-flow techni…
A calculation of the pion mass and decay constant at NNNLO in two-flavour chiral perturbation theory is presented. The results are cross-checked by using both the exponential and square root parameterizations of the Goldstone matrix field, as well as by comparing to the known leading log coefficients of the two quantities. A small numerical study of the quark mass dependence is performed, and for a physical quark mass there is good agreement with lower order results.
We calculate chiral susceptibilities in (2+1)-flavour QCD for different masses of the light quarks using the functional renormalisation group (fRG) approach to first-principles QCD. We follow the evolution of the chiral susceptibilities with decreasing masses as obtained from both the light-quark and the reduced quark condensate. The latter compares very well with recent results from the HotQCD collaboration for pion masses $m_π\gtrsim 100\,\text{MeV}$. For smaller pion masses, the fRG and lattice results are still consistent. In particular, the estimates for the chiral critical temperature ar…
We review recent results of Lattice QCD calculations relevant for flavour physics. We discuss in particular the hadronic parameters entering the amplitudes of K0-K0bar, D0-D0bar and B0-B0bar mixing, the B- and D-meson decay constants and the form factors controlling B-meson semileptonic decays. On the basis of these lattice results, which are extensively collected in the paper, we also derive our averages of the relevant hadronic parameters.
I review recent results and prospects for improvement in calculations of hadronic matrix elements relevant to quark flavour phenomenology. I will focus on key quantities for CKM unitarity triangle analyses and for the study of discrepancies between experiment and SM predictions for some flavour observables.
Within the chiral constituent quark model of Glozman and Riska, we discuss the stability of heavy pentaquarks, i.e. hadrons containing four light quarks and a heavy antiquark. The spin-dependent part of the Hamiltonian is dominated by the short-range part of the Goldstone-boson-exchange interaction. We find that these systems are not bound, having an energy above the lowest dissociation threshold into a baryon and a meson.
In this paper various theoretical approaches are used to define the dependence of the estimated $\mathcal{O}(α^5_s)$ and $\mathcal{O}(α^6_s)$-corrections to the QCD relation between pole and $\rm{\overline{MS}}$ running masses of heavy quarks on the number of light flavours. It is found that recently studied asymptotic formula for the coefficients of this relation, based on the infared-renormalon method, does not reproduce sign-alternating structure in the flavour-dependence of the five and six-loop corrections, which holds in three other used by us approaches.
We study UV-complete Froggatt-Nielsen-like models for the generation of mass and mixing hierarchies, assuming that the integrated heavy fields are chiral with respect to an abelian Froggatt-Nielsen symmetry. It modifies the mixed anomalies with respect to the Standard Model gauge group, which opens up the possibility to gauge the Froggatt-Nielsen symmetry without the need to introduce additional spectator fermions, while keeping mass matrices usually associated to anomalous flavour symmetries. We give specific examples where this happens, and we study the flavourful axion which arises from an …
We present results for the masses of pseudoscalar mesons in twisted mass lattice QCD with a degenerate doublet of u and d quarks and a non-degenerate doublet of s and c quarks in the framework of next-to-leading order chiral perturbation theory, including lattice effects up to O(a^2). The masses depend on the two twist angles for the light and heavy sectors. For maximal twist in both sectors, O(a)-improvement is explicitly exhibited. The mixing of flavour-neutral mesons is also discussed, and results in the literature for the case of degenerate s and c quarks are corrected.
The LatKMI collaboration is studying systematically the dynamical properties of N_f = 4,8,12,16 SU(3) gauge theories using lattice simulations with (HISQ) staggered fermions. Exploring the spectrum of many-flavour QCD, and its scaling near the chiral limit, is mandatory in order to establish if one of these models realises the Walking Technicolor scenario. Although lattice technologies to study the mesonic spectrum are well developed, scalar flavour-singlet states still require extra effort to be determined. In addition, gluonic observables usually require large-statistic simulations and power…
We study the impact of large lepton flavour asymmetries on the cosmic QCD transition. Scenarios of unequal lepton flavour asymmetries are observationally almost unconstrained and therefore open up a whole new parameter space for the cosmic QCD transition. We find that for large asymmetries the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate of pions can occur and identify the corresponding parameter space. In the vicinity of the QCD transition scale, we express the pressure in terms of a Taylor expansion with respect to the complete set of chemical potentials. The Taylor coefficients rely on input fro…
An important tool for the analysis of results of numerical simulations of lattice QCD is chiral perturbation theory. In Wilson chiral perturbation theory the effects of the finite lattice spacing $a$ are taken into account. In recent years the effects of isospin splitting on the masses of hadrons have been investigated in Monte Carlo simulations. Correspondingly, in this article we derive the expansions of the masses of the pseudoscalar mesons in chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order for twisted mass lattice QCD with three light quark flavours, taking the mass difference between …
We propose that in QCD with dynamical quarks, colour deconfinement occurs when an external field induced by the chiral condensate strongly aligns the Polyakov loop. This effect sets in at the chiral symmetry restoration temperature $T_χ$ and thus makes deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration coincide. The predicted singular behavior of Polyakov loop susceptibilities at $T_χ$ is shown to be supported by finite temperature lattice calculations.
We present an algorithm for deriving partonic flavour labels to be applied to truth particle jets in Monte Carlo event simulations. The inputs to this approach are final pre-hadronization partons, to remove dependence on unphysical details such as the order of matrix element calculation and shower generator frame recoil treatment. These are clustered using standard jet algorithms, modified to restrict the allowed pseudojet combinations to those in which tracked flavour labels are consistent with QCD and QED Feynman rules. The resulting algorithm is shown to be portable between the major famili…
We analyze the quark mass and flavour dependence of the QCD phase transition temperature. When the lightest pseudo-scalar meson mass (m_PS) is larger than 2 GeV the critical temperature is controlled by the gluonic sector of QCD alone. For smaller values of the lightest meson mass the pseudo-critical temperature decreases slowly with m_PS. For a large regime of meson masses the pseudo-critical temperature of 2-flavour QCD is about 10% larger than in the 3-flavour case. On lattices with temporal extent N_t=4 an extrapolation to the chiral limit yields T_c = 173(8) MeV and 154(8) MeV for 2 and 3…
We compute charmonium spectral functions in 2-flavour QCD using the maximum entropy method and anisotropic lattices. We find that the S-waves (J/psi and eta_c) survive up to temperatures close to 2T_c, while the P-waves (chi_c0 and chi_c1) melt away below 1.3T_c.