arXiv subjects

Andre Walker-Loud

Publications and source records attributed to Andre Walker-Loud.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

High Statistics Analysis using Anisotropic Clover Lattices: (III) Baryon-Baryon Interactions

Low-energy baryon-baryon interactions are calculated in a high-statistics lattice QCD study on a single ensemble of anisotropic clover gauge-field configurations at a pion mass of m_π~ 390 MeV, a spatial volume of L^3 ~ (2.5 fm)^3, and a spatial lattice spacing of b~0.123 fm. Lüscher's method is used to extract nucleon-nucleon, hyperon-nucleon and hyperon-hyperon scattering phase shifts at one momentum from the one- and two-baryon ground-state energies in the lattice volume. The isospin-3/2 NΣinteractions are found to be highly spin-dependent, and the interaction in the ^3S_1 channel is found to be strong. In contrast, the NΛinteractions are found to be spin-independent, within the uncertainties of the calculation, consistent with the absence of one-pion-exchange. The only channel for which a negative energy-shift is found is ΛΛ, indicating that the ΛΛinteraction is attractive, as anticipated from model-dependent discussions regarding the H-dibaryon. The NN scattering lengths are found to be small, clearly indicating the absence of any fine-tuning in the NN-sector at this pion mass. This is consistent with our previous Lattice QCD calculation of NN interactions. The behavior of the signal-to-noise ratio in the baryon-baryon correlation functions, and in the ratio of correlation functions that yields the ground-state energy splitting is explored. In particular, focus is placed on the window of time slices for which the signal-to-noise ratio does not degrade exponentially, as this provides the opportunity to extract quantitative information about multi-baryon systems.

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arXiv2009

Charged Hadron Properties in Background Electric Fields

We report on a lattice calculation demonstrating a novel new method to extract the electric polarizability of charged pseudo-scalar mesons by analyzing two point correlation functions computed in classical background electric fields.

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arXiv2009

Singly and Doubly Charmed J=1/2 Baryon Spectrum from Lattice QCD

We compute the masses of the singly and doubly charmed baryons in full QCD using the relativistic Fermilab action for the charm quark. For the light quarks we use domain-wall fermions in the valence sector and improved Kogut-Susskind sea quarks. We use the low-lying charmonium spectrum to tune our heavy-quark action and as a guide to understanding the discretization errors associated with the heavy quark. Our results are in good agreement with experiment within our systematics. For the Ξ_{cc}, we find the isospin-averaged mass to be M_{Ξ_{cc}} = 3665 +/- 17 +/- 14 +0 -78 MeV; the three given uncertainties are statistical, systematic and an estimate of lattice discretization errors, respectively. In addition, we predict the mass splitting of the (isospin-averaged) spin-1/2 Ω_{cc} with the Ξ_{cc} to be M_{Ω_{cc}} - M_{Ξ_{cc}} = 98 +/- 9 +/- 22 +/- 13 MeV (in this mass splitting, the leading discretization errors are also suppressed by SU(3) symmetry). Combining this splitting with our determination of M_{Ξ_{cc}} leads to our prediction of the spin-1/2 Ω_{cc} mass, M_{Ω_{cc}} = 3763 +/- 19 +/- 26 +13 -79 MeV.

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arXiv2009

Lattice QCD in Background Fields

Electromagnetic properties of hadrons can be computed by lattice simulations of QCD in background fields. We demonstrate new techniques for the investigation of charged hadron properties in electric fields. Our current calculations employ large electric fields, motivating us to analyze chiral dynamics in strong QED backgrounds, and subsequently uncover surprising non-perturbative effects present at finite volume.

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arXiv2009

Meson-Baryon Scattering Lengths from Mixed-Action Lattice QCD

The $π^+Σ^+$, $π^+Ξ^0$, $K^+p$, $K^+n$, and $\overline{K}{}^0 Ξ^0$ scattering lengths are calculated in mixed-action Lattice QCD with domain-wall valence quarks on the asqtad-improved coarse MILC configurations at four light-quark masses, and at two light-quark masses on the fine MILC configurations. Heavy Baryon Chiral Perturbation Theory with two and three flavors of light quarks is used to perform the chiral extrapolations. To the order we work in the three-flavor chiral expansion, the kaon-baryon processes that we investigate show no signs of convergence. Using the two-flavor chiral expansion for extrapolation, the pion-hyperon scattering lengths are found to be $a_{π^+Σ^+}=-0.197\pm0.017$ fm, and $a_{π^+Ξ^0}=-0.098\pm0.017$ fm, where the comprehensive error includes statistical and systematic uncertainties.

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arXiv2009

Mixed Action Effective Field Theory: an Addendum

We correct a mistake in the literature regarding the additive lattice spacing corrections to the mixed valence-sea meson mass and discuss the consequences for mixed action extrapolation formulae.

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arXiv2009

Extracting Electric Polarizabilities from Lattice QCD

Charged and neutral, pion and kaon electric polarizabilities are extracted from lattice QCD using an ensemble of anisotropic gauge configurations with dynamical clover fermions. We utilize classical background fields to access the polarizabilities from two-point correlation functions. Uniform background fields are achieved by quantizing the electric field strength with the proper treatment of boundary flux. These external fields, however, are implemented only in the valence quark sector. A novel method to extract charge particle polarizabilities is successfully demonstrated for the first time.

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arXiv2009

High Statistics Analysis using Anisotropic Clover Lattices: (II) Three-Baryon Systems

We present the results of an exploratory Lattice QCD calculation of three-baryon systems through a high-statistics study of one ensemble of anisotropic clover gauge-field configurations with a pion mass of m_π~ 390 MeV. Because of the computational cost of the necessary contractions, we focus on correlation functions generated by interpolating-operators with the quantum numbers of the $Ξ^0Ξ^0 n$ system, one of the least demanding three baryon systems in terms of the number of contractions. We find that the ground state of this system has an energy of E_{Ξ^0Ξ^0n}= 3877.9\pm 6.9\pm 9.2\pm3.3 MeV corresponding to an energy-shift due to interactions of δE_{Ξ^0Ξ^0n}=E_{Ξ^0Ξ^0n}-2M_{Ξ^0} -M_n=4.6\pm 5.0\pm 7.9\pm 4.2 MeV. There are a significant number of time-slices in the three-baryon correlation function for which the signal-to-noise ratio is only slowly degrading with time. This is in contrast to the exponential degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio that is observed at larger times, and is due to the suppressed overlap of the source and sink interpolating-operators that are associated with the variance of the three-baryon correlation function onto the lightest eigenstates in the lattice volume (mesonic systems). As one of the motivations for this area of exploration is the calculation of the structure and reactions of light nuclei, we also present initial results for a system with the quantum numbers of the triton (pnn). This present work establishes a path to multi-baryon systems, and shows that Lattice QCD calculations of the properties and interactions of systems containing four and five baryons are now within sight.

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arXiv2009

Universality of Mixed Action Extrapolation Formulae

Mixed action theories with chirally symmetric valence fermions exhibit very desirable features both at the level of the lattice calculations as well as in the construction and implementation of the low energy mixed action effective field theory. In this work we show that when such a mixed action effective field theory is projected onto the valence sector, both the Lagrangian and the extrapolation formulae become universal in form through next to leading order, for all variants of discretization methods used for the sea fermions. Our conclusion relies on the chiral nature of the valence quarks. The result implies that for all sea quark methods which are in the same universality class as QCD, the numerical values of the physical coefficients in the various mixed action chiral Lagrangians will be the same up to lattice spacing dependent corrections. This allows us to construct a prescription to determine the mixed action extrapolation formulae for a large class of hadronic correlation functions computed in partially quenched chiral perturbation theory at the one-loop level. For specific examples, we apply this prescription to the nucleon twist--2 matrix elements and the nucleon--nucleon system. In addition, we determine the mixed action extrapolation formula for the neutron EDM as this provides a nice example of a theta-dependent observable; these observables are exceptions to our prescription.

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arXiv2009

Strong isospin breaking with twisted mass lattice QCD

In this work we propose a method for including strong isospin breaking in twisted mass lattice calculations, while preserving flavor identification. We utilize a partially quenched construction in which the sea quarks are given by the standard twisted mass lattice action while the valence quarks have an additional strong isospin breaking mass term. This construction allows for a practical use with existing twisted-mass gauge ensembles. Additionally, we construct the relevant partially quenched twisted mass chiral perturbation theory for both mesons and baryons to O(m_q^2, m_q a, a^2). We provide explicit expressions for the pion, nucleon and delta masses, as well as the corresponding mass splittings, and discuss the resulting errors from including the strong isospin breaking in the valence sector only. Finally, we demonstrate how the application of this idea can be used, with mild approximations, to determine the values of both the up and down quark masses.

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arXiv2009

pi-pi Scattering in Twisted Mass Chiral Perturbation Theory

In this report we describe both I=2 and I=0 pi-pi scattering for twisted mass lattice QCD utilizing twisted mass chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order. Focusing on the lattice spacing (b) corrections, we demonstrate that in the exotic I=2, I_3=+-2 channels, the leading scaling violations of pi-pi scattering at maximal twist begin at O(m_pi^2 b^2). This is not the case in any other isospin channel, for which the scaling violations at maximal twist begin at O(b^2). Furthermore, we demonstrate the existence of a mixing between the I=2, I_3 = 0 and I=0 scattering channels due to the breaking of isospin symmetry by the twisted mass term. The mixing term, although formally next-to-leading order, is relatively large, thus necessitating the use of a coupled channel analysis. We argue that this mixing likely renders the computation of the I=0 channel impractical with twisted mass lattice QCD.

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arXiv2009

High Statistics Analysis using Anisotropic Clover Lattices: (I) Single Hadron Correlation Functions

We present the results of high-statistics calculations of correlation functions generated with single-baryon interpolating operators on an ensemble of dynamical anisotropic gauge-field configurations generated by the Hadron Spectrum Collaboration using a tadpole-improved clover fermion action and Symanzik-improved gauge action. A total of 292,500 sets of measurements are made using 1194 gauge configurations of size 20^3 x 128 with an anisotropy parameter ξ= b_s/b_t = 3.5, a spatial lattice spacing of b_s=0.1227\pm 0.0008 fm, and pion mass of m_π~ 390 MeV. Ground state baryon masses are extracted with fully quantified uncertainties that are at or below the ~0.2%-level in lattice units. The lowest-lying negative-parity states are also extracted albeit with a somewhat lower level of precision. In the case of the nucleon, this negative-parity state is above the Nπthreshold and, therefore, the isospin-1/2 πN s-wave scattering phase-shift can be extracted using Luescher's method. The disconnected contributions to this process are included indirectly in the gauge-field configurations and do not require additional calculations. The signal-to-noise ratio in the various correlation functions is explored and is found to degrade exponentially faster than naive expectations on many time-slices. This is due to backward propagating states arising from the anti-periodic boundary conditions imposed on the quark-propagators in the time-direction. We explore how best to distribute computational resources between configuration generation and propagator measurements in order to optimize the extraction of single baryon observables.

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arXiv2009

Light hadron spectroscopy using domain wall valence quarks on an Asqtad sea

We calculate the light hadron spectrum in full QCD using two plus one flavor Asqtad sea quarks and domain wall valence quarks. Meson and baryon masses are calculated on a lattice of spatial size $L \approx 2.5$\texttt{fm}, and a lattice spacing of $a \approx 0.124$\texttt{fm}, for pion masses as light as $m_π\approx 300$\texttt{MeV}, and compared with the results by the MILC collaboration with Asqtad valence quarks at the same lattice spacing. Two- and three-flavor chiral extrapolations of the baryon masses are performed using both continuum and mixed-action heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. Both the three-flavor and two-flavor functional forms describe our lattice results, although the low-energy constants from the next-to-leading order SU(3) fits are inconsistent with their phenomenological values. Next-to-next-to-leading order SU(2) continuum formulae provide a good fit to the data and yield and extrapolated nucleon mass consistent with experiment, but the convergence pattern indicates that even our lightest pion mass may be at the upper end of the chiral regime. Surprisingly, our nucleon masses are essentially lineaer in $m_π$ over our full range of pion masses, and we show this feature is common to all recent dynamical calculations of the nucleon mass. The origin of this linearity is not presently understood, and lighter pion masses and increased control of systematic errors will be needed to resolve this puzzling behavior.

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arXiv2008

Hadronic Interactions with Lattice QCD

I discuss recent results of the NPLQCD Collaboration regarding the calculation of hadronic interactions with lattice QCD. A particular emphasis will be spent on pi-pi scattering and other meson interactions.

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arXiv2008

Restless pions from orbifold boundary conditions: an explicit construction for noise reduction in lattice QCD

The exponentially decreasing signal to noise ratio in multibaryon correlators is the main obstacle to a first principles, QCD-based calculation of the nuclear force. Recently, we have proposed an orbifold boundary condition ("restless pions") that can dramatically improve this matter. Here we develop the idea further by proposing an explicit algorithm that can be used with purely periodic, "off the shelf" gauge configurations. We also discuss finite volume corrections with the new boundary conditions and the use of the "Luscher formula'' for the phase shifts.

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arXiv2008

New lessons from the nucleon mass, lattice QCD and heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory

I will review heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory for the nucleon delta degrees of freedom and then examine the recent dynamical lattice calculations of the nucleon mass from the BMW, ETM, JLQCD, LHP, MILC, NPLQCD, PACS-CS, QCDSF/UKQCD and RBC/UKQCD Collaborations. Performing the chiral extrapolations of these results, one finds remarkable agreement with the physical nucleon mass, from each lattice data set. However, a careful examination of the lattice data and the resulting extrapolation functions reveals some unexpected results, serving to highlight the significant challenges in performing chiral extrapolations of baryon quantities. All the N_f=2+1 dynamical results can be quantitatively described by theoretically unmotivated fit function linear in the pion mass with m_pi ~ 750 -190 MeV. When extrapolated to the physical point, the results are in striking agreement with the physical nucleon mass. I will argue that knowledge of each lattice datum of the nucleon mass is required at the 1-2% level, including all systematics, in order to conclusively determine if this is a bizarre conspiracy of lattice artifacts or rather a mysterious phenomenon of QCD.

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arXiv2008

Hyperons in Two Flavor Chiral Perturbation Theory

We use two-flavor chiral perturbation theory to describe hyperons. We focus on the strangeness conserving sector, and, as an example, calculate hyperon masses. Convergence of this two-flavor chiral expansion for observables is improved over the three-flavor theory. The cost, however, is a larger number of low-energy constants that must be ultimately determined from lattice QCD data. A formula for the mass of the omega baryon is derived to sixth order in this expansion, and will aid lattice practitioners in scale setting or tuning the strange quark mass.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2008

Electric Polarizabilities from Lattice QCD

The response of hadrons to electromagnetic probes is highly constrained by chiral dynamics; but, in some cases, predictions have not compared well with experimental data. The lattice can be used to test the chiral electromagnetism of hadrons and ultimately confront experiment. We use background field techniques to study the electromagnetic polarizabilities of hadrons. Focusing on simulations in background electric fields, we present preliminary results for both charged and neutral particle polarizabilities. The former are extracted using a novel method.

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