arXiv subjects

R. Sugar

Publications and source records attributed to R. Sugar.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

Progress on charm semileptonic form factors from 2+1 flavor lattice QCD

Lattice calculations of the form factors for the charm semileptonic decays D to K l nu and D to pi l nu provide inputs to direct determinations of the CKM matrix elements |V(cs)| and |V(cd)| and can be designed to validate calculations of the form factors for the bottom semileptonic decays B to pi l nu and B to K l l-bar. We are using Fermilab charm (bottom) quarks and asqtad staggered light quarks on the 2+1 flavor asqtad MILC ensembles to calculate the charm (bottom) form factors. We outline improvements to the previous calculation of the charm form factors and detail our progress. We expect our current round of data production to allow us to reduce the theoretical uncertainties in |V(cs)| and |V(cd)| from 10.5% and 11%, respectively, to about 7%.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

Results from the MILC collaboration's SU(3) chiral perturbation theory analysis

We present the status of the MILC collaboration's analysis of the light pseudoscalar meson sector with SU(3) chiral fits. The analysis includes data from new ensembles with smaller lattice spacing, smaller light quark masses and lighter than physical strange quark masses. Our fits include the NNLO chiral logarithms. We present results for decay constants, quark masses, Gasser-Leutwyler low energy constants, and condensates in the two- and three-flavor chiral limits.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

Progress on four flavor QCD with the HISQ action

We describe recent progress on generation of gauge configurations using the Highly Improved Staggered Quark (HISQ) action that was designed by the HPQCD/UKQCD collaboration. The HISQ action requires two levels of smearing with a reunitarization of the links before the second smearing. We describe how we deal with the occurrence of occasional large forces arising from the reunitarization step. The MILC collaboration is currently generating ensembles with approximate lattice spacings of 0.15, 0.12, 0.09, and 0.06 fm, with the strange and charm quark masses close to their physical values and the mass of the light quarks m_l set to 0.2 m_s. We present recent results for pion taste splittings, light hadron masses, the static potential, the eta_c dispersion relation and the topological susceptibility.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

SU(2) chiral fits to light pseudoscalar masses and decay constants

We present the results of fits to recent asqtad data in the light pseudoscalar sector using SU(2) partially-quenched staggered chiral perturbation theory. Superfine (a~0.06 fm) and ultrafine (a~0.045 fm) ensembles are used, where light sea quark masses and taste splittings are small compared to the strange quark mass. Our fits include continuum NNLO chiral logarithms and analytic terms. We give preliminary results for the pion decay constant, SU(2) low-energy constants and the chiral condensate in the two-flavor chiral limit.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

MILC results for light pseudoscalars

We present the latest preliminary results of the MILC collaboration's analysis of the light pseudoscalar meson sector. The analysis includes data from new ensembles with smaller lattice spacings, smaller light quark masses and lighter-than-physical strange quark masses. Both SU(2) and SU(3) chiral fits, including NNLO chiral logarithms, are shown. We give results for decay constants, quark masses, Gasser-Leutwyler low energy constants, and condensates in the two- and three-flavor chiral limits.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

QCD equation of state at non-zero chemical potential

We present our new results for the QCD equation of state at nonzero chemical potential at N_t=6 and compare them with N_t=4. We use the Taylor expansion method with terms up to sixth order in simulations with 2+1 flavors of improved asqtad quarks along a line of constant physics with m_l=0.1 m_s and approximately physical strange quark mass m_s.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

Full nonperturbative QCD simulations with 2+1 flavors of improved staggered quarks

Dramatic progress has been made over the last decade in the numerical study of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) through the use of improved formulations of QCD on the lattice (improved actions), the development of new algorithms and the rapid increase in computing power available to lattice gauge theorists. In this article we describe simulations of full QCD using the improved staggered quark formalism, ``asqtad'' fermions. These simulations were carried out with two degenerate flavors of light quarks (up and down) and with one heavier flavor, the strange quark. Several light quark masses, down to about 3 times the physical light quark mass, and six lattice spacings have been used. These enable controlled continuum and chiral extrapolations of many low energy QCD observables. We review the improved staggered formalism, emphasizing both advantages and drawbacks. In particular, we review the procedure for removing unwanted staggered species in the continuum limit. We then describe the asqtad lattice ensembles created by the MILC Collaboration. All MILC lattice ensembles are publicly available, and they have been used extensively by a number of lattice gauge theory groups. We review physics results obtained with them, and discuss the impact of these results on phenomenology. Topics include the heavy quark potential, spectrum of light hadrons, quark masses, decay constant of light and heavy-light pseudoscalar mesons, semileptonic form factors, nucleon structure, scattering lengths and more. We conclude with a brief look at highly promising future prospects.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

Visualization of semileptonic form factors from lattice QCD

Comparisons of lattice-QCD calculations of semileptonic form factors with experimental measurements often display two sets of points, one each for lattice QCD and experiment. Here we propose to display the output of a lattice-QCD analysis as a curve and error band. This is justified, because lattice-QCD results rely in part on fitting, both for the chiral extrapolation and to extend lattice-QCD data over the full physically allowed kinematic domain. To display an error band, correlations in the fit parameters must be taken into account. For the statistical error, the correlation comes from the fit. To illustrate how to address correlations in the systematic errors, we use the Becirevic-Kaidalov parametrization of the D -> pi l nu and D -> K l nu form factors, and a analyticity-based fit for the B -> pi l nu form factor f_+.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

B and D Meson Decay Constants

We present an update of our calculations of the decay constants of the D, D_s, B, and B_s mesons in unquenched 2+1 flavor QCD. We use the MILC library of improved staggered gauge ensembles at lattice spacings 0.09, 0.12, and 0.15 fm, clover heavy quarks with the Fermilab normalizations, and improved staggered light valence quarks.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

Equation of state and QCD transition at finite temperature

We calculate the equation of state in 2+1 flavor QCD at finite temperature with physical strange quark mass and almost physical light quark masses using lattices with temporal extent Nt=8. Calculations have been performed with two different improved staggered fermion actions, the asqtad and p4 actions. Overall, we find good agreement between results obtained with these two O(a^2) improved staggered fermion discretization schemes. A comparison with earlier calculations on coarser lattices is performed to quantify systematic errors in current studies of the equation of state. We also present results for observables that are sensitive to deconfining and chiral aspects of the QCD transition on Nt=6 and 8 lattices. We find that deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration happen in the same narrow temperature interval. In an Appendix we present a simple parametrization of the equation of state that can easily be used in hydrodynamic model calculations. In this parametrization we also incorporated an estimate of current uncertainties in the lattice calculations which arise from cutoff and quark mass effects. We estimate these systematic effects to be about 10 MeV

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

HISQ action in dynamical simulations

We report on recent progress in employing the Highly Improved Staggered Quark (HISQ) action introduced by the HPQCD/UKQCD collaboration in simulations with dynamical fermions. The HISQ action is an order $a^2$ Symanzik-improved action with further suppressed taste symmetry violations. The improvement in taste symmetry is achieved by introducing Fat7 smearing of the original gauge links and reunitarization (projection to an element of U(3) or SU(3)) followed by Asq-type smearing. Major challenges for calculating the fermion force are related to the reunitarization step. We present a preliminary study of the HISQ action on two 2+1+1 flavor ensembles with the lattice spacing roughly equivalent to the MILC asqtad a=0.125 and 0.09 fm ensembles.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

The B -> pi l nu semileptonic form factor from three-flavor lattice QCD: A model-independent determination of |V(ub)|

We calculate the form factor f_+(q^2) for B-meson semileptonic decay in unquenched lattice QCD with 2+1 flavors of light sea quarks. We use Asqtad-improved staggered light quarks and a Fermilab bottom quark on gauge configurations generated by the MILC Collaboration. We simulate with several light quark masses and at two lattice spacings, and extrapolate to the physical quark mass and continuum limit using heavy-light meson staggered chiral perturbation theory. We then fit the lattice result for f_+(q^2) simultaneously with that measured by the BABAR experiment using a parameterization of the form factor shape in q^2 which relies only on analyticity and unitarity in order to determine the CKM matrix element |V(ub)|. This approach reduces the total uncertainty in |V(ub)| by combining the lattice and experimental information in an optimal, model-independent manner. We find a value of |V(ub)| x 10^3 = 3.38 +/- 0.36.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2009

The B -> D* l nu form factor at zero recoil from three-flavor lattice QCD: A model independent determination of |V_cb|

We present the first lattice QCD calculation of the form factor for B-> D* l nu with three flavors of sea quarks. We use an improved staggered action for the light valence and sea quarks (the MILC configurations), and the Fermilab action for the heavy quarks. The form factor is computed at zero recoil using a new double ratio method that yields the form factor more directly than the previous Fermilab method. Other improvements over the previous calculation include the use of much lighter light quark masses, and the use of lattice (staggered) chiral perturbation theory in order to control the light quark discretization errors and chiral extrapolation. We obtain for the form factor, F_{B-> D*}(1)=0.921(13)(20), where the first error is statistical and the second is the sum of all systematic errors in quadrature. Applying a 0.7% electromagnetic correction and taking the latest PDG average for F_{B-> D*}(1)|V_cb| leads to |V_cb|=(38.7 +/- 0.9_exp +/- 1.0_theo) x 10^-3.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2008

Electromagnetic splittings of hadrons from improved staggered quarks in full QCD

We present our initial study of the electromagnetic splittings of charged and neutral mesons, and the violation of Dashen's theorem. Hadron masses are calculated on MILC N_f=2+1 QCD ensembles at lattice spacing \approx 0.15fm, together with quenched non-compact U(1) configurations. The O(a^2) tadpole improved staggered quark (asqtad) action is used both for the sea quarks and for six different valence quark masses. Chiral extrapolations are performed using partially quenched chiral perturbation theory incorporating electromagnetic corrections.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2008

QCD thermodynamics with 2+1 flavors at nonzero chemical potential

We present results for the QCD equation of state, quark densities and susceptibilities at nonzero chemical potential, using 2+1 flavor asqtad ensembles with $N_t=4$. The ensembles lie on a trajectory of constant physics for which $m_{ud}\approx0.1m_s$. The calculation is performed using the Taylor expansion method with terms up to sixth order in $μ/T$.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2007

Baryon masses with improved staggered quarks

The MILC collaboration's simulations with improved staggered quarks are being extended with runs at a lattice spacing of 0.06 fm with quark masses down to one tenth the strange quark mass. We give a brief introduction to these new simulations and the determination of the lattice spacing. Then we combine these new runs with older results to study the masses of the nucleon and the Omega minus in the continuum and chiral limits.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2007

The 2+1 flavor topological susceptibility from the asqtad action at 0.06 fm

We report new data for the topological susceptibility computed on 2+1 flavor dynamical configurations with lattice spacing 0.06 fm, generated with the asqtad action. The topological susceptibility is computed by HYP smearing and compared with rooted staggered chiral perturbation theory as the pion mass goes to zero. At 0.06 fm, the raw data is already quite close to the continuum extrapolated values obtained from coarser lattices. These results provide a further test of the asqtad action with rooted staggered flavors.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2007

Status of the MILC light pseudoscalar meson project

We discuss the current status of our calculation of the physics of pi and K mesons using three dynamical flavors of improved staggered quarks. This year, we have a new ensemble with a lattice spacing of 0.06 fm and a light sea mass of 0.2 m_s, as well as significant increases in statistics at several coarser lattice spacings and/or heavier sea masses. Results for decay constants, quark masses, low energy constants, condensates, and V_{us} are presented.

hep-lat↗