arXiv subjects

Nora Brambilla

Publications and source records attributed to Nora Brambilla.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

50 Years of Quantum Chromodynamics

This paper presents a comprehensive review of both the theory and experimental successes of Quantum Chromodynamics, starting with its emergence as a well defined theory in 1972-73 and following developments and results up to the present day. Topics include a review of the earliest theoretical and experimental foundations; the fundamental constants of QCD; an introductory discussion of lattice QCD, the only known method for obtaining exact predictions from QCD; methods for approximating QCD, with special focus on effective field theories; QCD under extreme conditions; measurements and predictions of meson and baryon states; a special discussion of the structure of the nucleon; techniques for study of QCD at high energy, including treatment of jets and showers; measurements at colliders; weak decays and quark mixing; and a section on the future, which discusses new experimental facilities or upgrades currently funded. The paper is intended to provide a broad background for Ph.D. students and postdocs starting their career. Some contributions include personal accounts of how the ideas or experiments were developed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Implications of gradient flow on the static force

We use gradient flow to compute the static force based on a Wilson loop with a chromoelectric field insertion. The result can be compared on one hand to the static force from the numerical derivative of the lattice static energy, and on the other hand to the perturbative calculation, allowing a precise extraction of the $Λ_0$ parameter. This study may open the way to gradient flow calculations of correlators of chromoelectric and chromomagnetic fields, which typically arise in the nonrelativistic effective field theory factorization.

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arXiv2022

Heavy quark diffusion coefficient with gradient flow

The heavy quark diffusion coefficient is encoded in the spectral functions of the chromo-electric and the chromo-magnetic correlators, of which the latter describes the T/M contribution. We study these correlators at two different temperatures $T=1.5T_c$ and $T=10^4T_c$ in the deconfined phase of SU(3) gauge theory. We use gradient flow for noise reduction. We perform both continuum and zero flow time limits to extract the heavy quark diffusion coefficient. Our results imply that the mass suppressed effects in the heavy quark diffusion coefficient are 20% for bottom quarks and 34% for charm quark at $T=1.5T_c$.

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arXiv2022

Heavy hybrid decays to quarkonia

The decay rates of the XYZ exotics discovered in the heavy quarkonium sector are crucial observables for identifying the nature of these states. Based on the framework of nonrelativistic effective field theories, we calculate the rates of semi-inclusive decays of heavy quarkonium hybrids into conventional heavy quarkonia. We compute them at leading and subleading power in the inverse of the heavy-quark mass, extending and updating previous results. We compare our predictions with experimental data of inclusive decay rates for candidates of heavy quarkonium hybrids.

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arXiv2022

Charm mass effects in the static energy computed in 2+1+1 flavor lattice QCD

We report our analysis for the static energy in (2+1+1)-flavor QCD over a wide range of lattice spacings and several quark masses. We obtain results for the static energy out to distances of nearly 1 fm, allowing us to perform a simultaneous determination of the lattice scales $r_2$, $r_1$ and $r_0$ as well as the string tension, $σ$. While our results for ${r_0}/{r_1}$ and $r_0$ $\sqrtσ$ agree with published (2+1)-flavor results, our result for ${r_1}/{r_2}$ differs significantly from the value obtained in the (2+1)-flavor case, likely due to the effect of the charm quark. We study in detail the effect of the charm quark on the static energy by comparing our results on the finest lattices with the previously published (2+1)-flavor QCD results at similar lattice spacing. The lattice results agree well with the two-loop perturbative expression of the static energy incorporating finite charm mass effects.

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arXiv2022

Quark Nuclear Physics with Heavy Quarks

Heavy quarks have been instrumental for progress in our exploration of strong interactions. Quarkonium in particular, a heavy quark-antiquark nonrelativistic bound state, has been at the root of several revolutions. Quarkonium is endowed with a pattern of separated energy scales qualifying it as special probe of complex environments. Its multiscale nature has made a description in Quantum Field Theory particularly difficult up to the advent of Nonrelativistic Effective Field Theories. We will focus on systems made by two or more heavy quarks. After considering some historical approaches based on the potential models and the Wilson loop approach, we will introduce the contemporary nonrelativistic effective field theory descriptions, in particular potential Nonrelativistic QCD which entails the Schoedinger equation as zero order problem, define the potentials as matching coefficients and allows systematic calculations of the physical properties. The effective field theory allows us to explore quarkonium properties in the realm of QCD. In particular it allows us to make calculations with unprecedented precision when high order perturbative calculations are possible and to systematically factorize short from long range contributions where observables are sensitive to the nonperturbative dynamics of QCD. Such effective field theory treatment can be extended at finite temperature and in presence of gluonic and light quark excitations. We will show that in this novel theoretical framework, quarkonium can play a crucial role for a number of problems at the frontier of our research, from the investigation of the confinement dynamics in strong interactions to the study of deconfinement and the phase diagram of nuclear matter, to the precise determination of Standard Model parameters up to the emergence of exotics X Y Z states of an unprecedented nature.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Production and polarization of $S$-wave quarkonia in potential nonrelativistic QCD

Based on the potential nonrelativistic QCD formalism, we compute the nonrelativistic QCD long-distance matrix elements (LDMEs) for inclusive production of $S$-wave heavy quarkonia. This greatly reduces the number of nonperturbative unknowns and brings in a substantial enhancement in the predictive power of the nonrelativistic QCD factorization formalism. We obtain improved determinations of the LDMEs and find cross sections and polarizations of $J/ψ$, $ψ(2S)$, and excited $Υ$ states that agree well with LHC data. Our results may have important implications in pinning down the heavy quarkonium production mechanism.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Substructure of Multiquark Hadrons (Snowmass 2021 White Paper)

In recent years there has been a rapidly growing body of experimental evidence for existence of exotic, multiquark hadrons, i.e. mesons which contain additional quarks, beyond the usual quark-antiquark pair and baryons which consist of more than three quarks. In all cases with robust evidence they contain at least one heavy quark Q=c or b, the majority including two heavy quarks. Two key theoretical questions have been triggered by these discoveries: (a) how are quarks organized inside these multiquark states -- as compact objects with all quarks within one confinement volume, interacting via color forces, perhaps with an important role played by diquarks, or as deuteron-like hadronic molecules, bound by light-meson exchange? (b) what other multiquark states should we expect? The two questions are tightly intertwined. Each of the interpretations provides a natural explanation of parts of the data, but neither explains all of the data. It is quite possible that both kinds of structures appear in Nature. It may also be the case that certain states are superpositions of the compact and molecular configurations. This Whitepaper brings together contributions from many leading practitioners in the field, representing a wide spectrum of theoretical interpretations. We discuss the importance of future experimental and phenomenological work, which will lead to better understandingof multiquark phenomena in QCD.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Lattice gauge theory computation of the static force

We explore a novel approach to compute the force between a static quark and a static antiquark with lattice gauge theory directly. The approach is based on expectation values of Wilson loops or Polyakov loops with chromoelectric field insertions. We discuss theoretical and technical aspects in detail, in particular, how to compensate large discretization errors with a multiplicative renormalization factor and the evaluation using a multilevel algorithm. We also compare numerical results for the static force to corresponding results obtained in the traditional way, i.e., by computing first the static potential and then taking the derivative.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2022

QCD Static Force in Gradient Flow

We compute the QCD static force and potential using gradient flow at next-to-leading order in the strong coupling. The static force is the spatial derivative of the static potential: it encodes the QCD interaction at both short and long distances. While on the one side the static force has the advantage of being free of the $O(Λ_{\rm QCD})$ renormalon affecting the static potential when computed in perturbation theory, on the other side its direct lattice QCD computation suffers from poor convergence. The convergence can be improved by using gradient flow, where the gauge fields in the operator definition of a given quantity are replaced by flowed fields at flow time $t$, which effectively smear the gauge fields over a distance of order $\sqrt{t}$, while they reduce to the QCD fields in the limit $t \to 0$. Based on our next-to-leading order calculation, we explore the properties of the static force for arbitrary values of $t$, as well as in the $t \to 0$ limit, which may be useful for lattice QCD studies.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Effective Field Theories and Lattice QCD for the X Y Z frontier

Exotic states have been predicted before and after the advent of QCD. In the last decades they have been observed at accelerator experiments in the sector with two heavy quarks, at or above the quarkonium strong decay threshold and called X Y Z states. These states offer a unique possibility for investigating the dynamical properties of strongly correlated systems in QCD. I will show how an alliance of nonrelativistic effective field theories and lattice can allow us to address these states in QCD. In particular I will explain what are the opportunities and challenges of lattice QCD in this respect and which new tools should be developed.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2021

Chromoelectric and chromomagnetic correlators at high temperature from gradient flow

The heavy quark diffusion coefficient is encoded in the spectral functions of the chromoelectric and the chromomagnetic correlators that are calculable on the lattice. We study the chromoelectric and the chromomagnetic correlator in the deconfined phase of SU(3) gauge theory using Symanzik flow at two temperatures $1.5T_c$ and $10000 T_c$, with $T_c$ being the phase transition temperature. To control the lattice discretization errors and perform the continuum limit we use several temporal lattice extents $N_t=16,20,24$ and 28. We observe that the flow time dependence of the chromomagnetic correlator is quite different from chromoelectric correlator most likely due to the anomalous dimension of the former as has been pointed out recently in the literature.

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arXiv2021

The static force from generalized Wilson loops using gradient flow

We explore a novel approach to compute the force between a static quark-antiquark pair with the gradient flow algorithm on the lattice. The approach is based on inserting a chromoelectric field in a Wilson loop. The renormalization issues, associated with the finite size of the chromoelectric field on the lattice, can be solved with the use of gradient flow. We compare numerical results for the flowed static potential to our previous measurement of the same observable without a gradient flow.

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arXiv2021

The static force from generalized Wilson loops

Recently a method to compute the static force with lattice gauge theory using an insertion of a chromoelectric field into a Wilson loop was proposed. We explore this method using the multilevel algorithm and discuss the renormalization of the chromoelectric field on the lattice.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2021

The static energy in 2+1+1-flavor QCD

We report on the status of the analysis of the static energy in $2+1+1$-flavor QCD. The static energy is obtained by measuring Wilson line correlators in Coulomb gauge using the HISQ action, yielding the scales $r_{0}/a$, $r_{1}/a$, $r_{2}/a$, their ratios, and the string tension $σr_{i}^{2}$. We put emphasis on the possible effects due to the dynamical charm-quark by comparing the lattice results to continuum results of the static energy with and without a massive flavor at two-loop accuracy. We employ gauge-field ensembles from the HotQCD and MILC Collaborations.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2021

Inclusive Production of Heavy Quarkonia in pNRQCD

We develop a formalism for computing inclusive production cross sections of heavy quarkonia based on the nonrelativistic QCD and the potential nonrelativistic QCD effective field theories. Our formalism applies to strongly coupled quarkonia, which include excited charmonium and bottomonium states. Analogously to heavy quarkonium decay processes, we express nonrelativistic QCD long-distance matrix elements in terms of quarkonium wavefunctions at the origin and universal gluonic correlators. Our expressions for the long-distance matrix elements are valid up to corrections of order $1/N_c^2$. These expressions enhance the predictive power of the nonrelativistic effective field theory approach to inclusive production processes by reducing the number of nonperturbative unknowns, and make possible first-principle determinations of long-distance matrix elements once the gluonic correlators are known. Based on this formalism, we compute the production cross sections of $P$-wave charmonia and bottomonia at the LHC, and find good agreement with measurements.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Bottomonium production in heavy-ion collisions using quantum trajectories: Differential observables and momentum anisotropy

We report predictions for the suppression and elliptic flow of the $Υ(1S)$, $Υ(2S)$, and $Υ(3S)$ as a function of centrality and transverse momentum in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We obtain our predictions by numerically solving a Lindblad equation for the evolution of the heavy-quarkonium reduced density matrix derived using potential nonrelativistic QCD and the formalism of open quantum systems. To numerically solve the Lindblad equation, we make use of a stochastic unraveling called the quantum trajectories algorithm. This unraveling allows us to solve the Lindblad evolution equation efficiently on large lattices with no angular momentum cutoff. The resulting evolution describes the full 3D quantum and non-abelian evolution of the reduced density matrix for bottomonium states. We expand upon our previous work by treating differential observables and elliptic flow; this is made possible by a newly implemented Monte-Carlo sampling of physical trajectories. Our final results are compared to experimental data collected in $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV Pb-Pb collisions by the ALICE, ATLAS, and CMS collaborations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Bottomonium suppression in an open quantum system using the quantum trajectories method

We solve the Lindblad equation describing the Brownian motion of a Coulombic heavy quark-antiquark pair in a strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma using the highly efficient Monte Carlo wave-function method. The Lindblad equation has been derived in the framework of pNRQCD and fully accounts for the quantum and non-Abelian nature of the system. The hydrodynamics of the plasma is realistically implemented through a 3+1D dissipative hydrodynamics code. We compute the bottomonium nuclear modification factor and compare with the most recent LHC data. The computation does not rely on any free parameter, as it depends on two transport coefficients that have been evaluated independently in lattice QCD. Our final results, which include late-time feed down of excited states, agree well with the available data from LHC 5.02 TeV PbPb collisions.

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