arXiv subjects

Mengchu Cai

Publications and source records attributed to Mengchu Cai.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Impact of Dynamical Charm Quark and Mixed Action Effect on Light Hadron Masses and Decay Constants

We investigate the impact of including a dynamical charm quark on the properties of light hadrons. Our study compares the calculations performed on 2+1+1 flavor (HISQ fermion) ensembles at four lattice spacings to those on 2+1 flavor (clover fermion) ensembles at six lattice spacings, with both sets of ensembles employing the identical Symanzik gauge action. For the light, strange and charm flavor observables, we employ the same tadpole-improved clover fermion action. From numerical results for light and strange quark masses, pion and kaon decay constants, and $\Omega$ and $\Omega_{ccc}$ baryon masses, we find that the values obtained after continuum, chiral, and infinite-volume extrapolations are consistent within uncertainties. Even though the mixed action setup can introduce additional discretization effects, our calculation shows evidences that those effects can cancel with the discretization error in the unitary setup, resulting in better convergence in the continuum extrapolation.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2026

Accurate B meson and Bottomonium masses and decay constants from the tadpole improved clover ensembles

We present a determination of the bottom quark mass, the masses of S-wave bottom mesons, and their decay constants using an anisotropic clover fermion discretization for the heavy quark, on $2+1$ flavor isotropic QCD ensembles. Our analysis is based on 16 ensembles spanning 6 lattice spacings, with pion masses in the range of 135-350 MeV and several values of the strange quark mass. We demonstrate that the effective anisotropy parameter for the heavy quark approaches unity with controllable $\mathcal{O}(a^2)$ corrections. A non-perturbative renormalization procedure is developed and validated through predictions of the bottom quark mass and decay constants. This framework enables calculations at the physical $b$-quark mass even on lattices with spacing $a \sim 0.1$ fm, where $m_b a \sim 2.5$, while keeping discretization errors in hadronic matrix elements at the $\sim 10$% level which can be eliminated properly through the continuum extrapolation. Using the physical $\Upsilon$ mass as input, we obtain $m_b^{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}(m_b) = 4.185(37)$ GeV and the full spectrum of S-wave bottom mesons with 0.1% uncertainty or less. Pseudoscalar and vector decay constants and their ratios for all kinds of S-wave bottom mesons are also provided.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2025

Comparison of the mixed-fermion-action Effects using different fermion and gauge actions with 2+1 and 2+1+1 flavors

The leading-order low-energy constant $\Delta_{\rm mix}$ in mixed-action chiral perturbation theory is calculated using $2+1+1$-flavor gauge ensembles with HISQ fermions and a tadpole-improved Symanzik gauge action at four lattice spacings $a \in [0.048, 0.111]$ fm. By comparing our results to those from different actions and a $2+1$-flavor case, We find that the fermion action has the dominant impact, the gauge action has a secondary but measurable effect, and the contribution from charm quark loops is negligible within our current uncertainties.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2024

Charmed meson masses and decay constants in the continuum from the tadpole improved clover ensembles

We present the determination of the charm quark mass, the masses, and decay constants of charmed mesons using thirteen 2+1 flavor gauge ensembles at five different lattice spacings $a\in[0.05,0.11]$ fm, 8 pion masses $m_{\pi}\in(130,360)$ MeV, and several values of the strange quark mass, which facilitate us to do the chiral and continuum extrapolation. These ensembles are generated through the stout smeared clover fermion action and Symanzik gauge actions with the tadpole improvement. By absorbing the discretization errors into the masses and field normalization of the charm quark, we manage to suppress the discretization error of the charmed meson mass and all the S-wave open charmed meson decay constants to a few percent or even less at lattice spacing $ a \sim 0.1 $ fm. Moreover, discretization errors for other quantities are also significantly reduced. The continuum extrapolated charm quark mass, $m_c(m_c)=1.2933(72)(95)$ GeV in $\overline{\textrm{MS}}$ scheme, is determined using QED-subtracted $D_s$ meson mass and non-perturbative renormalization. Predictions of the open and close charm mesons using this charm quark mass agree with the experimental values at 0.1-0.5\% level uncertainty. We obtained $D_{(s)}$ decay constants and also by far the most precise $D_{(s)}^*$ decay constants $f_{D^*}=0.2292(26)(17)$ GeV and $f_{D^*_s}=0.2691(30)(03)$ GeV.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2022

Dilepton production in the photodisintegration of the deuteron

We study the lepton pair production in the photodisintegration of the deuteron process. The complete seven-fold differential cross section is calculated via the Bethe-Heitler mechanism with final state interactions taken into account. The deuteron bound state is described by a relativistic covariant deuteron-nucleon vertex. With numerical results, we find that the differential cross section has strong dependence on the lepton azimuthal angle in the small polar angle region and sharp peaks appear in the dependence on the invariant mass of the produced lepton pair or the two nucleons in the final state. We demonstrate that such nearly singular feature originates from the collinearity between the produced lepton or antilepton and the incident photon, and it is physically regularized by the lepton mass in our calculation. The final state interaction between the knocked-out nucleon and the recoil nucleon redistributes the differential cross section over the missing momentum, with a significant enhancement at large missing momentum and a suppression in the intermediate region. With a further decomposition of the final state interaction contribution, it is found that the on-shell term dominates the near quasi-elastic region while the off-shell term dominates the other end. In addition, we examine the contribution from the interference between the proton amplitude and the neutron amplitude, which as expected is found negligible even if the proton-neutron rescattering is included. The result in this work can serve as an input for the analysis and background estimation of multiple exclusive measurements at Jefferson Lab and future electron-ion colliders.

hep-ph↗