arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to S. Peris.
We discuss the prospects for improving the precision on the hadronic corrections to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, and the plans of the Muon $g-2$ Theory Initiative to update the Standard Model prediction.
Theoretical predictions for particle production cross sections and decays at colliders rely heavily on perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) calculations, expressed as an expansion in powers of the strong coupling constant $\alpha_s$. The current $\mathcal{O}(1\%)$ uncertainty of the QCD coupling evaluated at the reference Z boson mass, $\alpha_s(m_Z) = 0.1179 \pm 0.0009$, is one of the limiting factors to more precisely describe multiple processes at current and future colliders. A reduction of this uncertainty is thus a prerequisite to perform precision tests of the Standard Model as well as searches for new physics. This report provides a comprehensive summary of the state-of-the-art, challenges, and prospects in the experimental and theoretical study of the strong coupling. The current $\alpha_s(m_Z)$ world average is derived from a combination of seven categories of observables: (i) lattice QCD, (ii) hadronic $\tau$ decays, (iii) deep-inelastic scattering and parton distribution functions fits, (iv) electroweak boson decays, hadronic final-states in (v) $e^+e^-$, (vi) e-p, and (vii) p-p collisions, and (viii) quarkonia decays and masses. We review the current status of each of these seven $\alpha_s(m_Z)$ extraction methods, discuss novel $\alpha_s$ determinations, and examine the averaging method used to obtain the world-average value. Each of the methods discussed provides a ``wish list'' of experimental and theoretical developments required in order to achieve the goal of a per-mille precision on $\alpha_s(m_Z)$ within the next decade.
We review the present status of the Standard Model calculation of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. This is performed in a perturbative expansion in the fine-structure constant $\alpha$ and is broken down into pure QED, electroweak, and hadronic contributions. The pure QED contribution is by far the largest and has been evaluated up to and including $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^5)$ with negligible numerical uncertainty. The electroweak contribution is suppressed by $(m_\mu/M_W)^2$ and only shows up at the level of the seventh significant digit. It has been evaluated up to two loops and is known to better than one percent. Hadronic contributions are the most difficult to calculate and are responsible for almost all of the theoretical uncertainty. The leading hadronic contribution appears at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^2)$ and is due to hadronic vacuum polarization, whereas at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^3)$ the hadronic light-by-light scattering contribution appears. Given the low characteristic scale of this observable, these contributions have to be calculated with nonperturbative methods, in particular, dispersion relations and the lattice approach to QCD. The largest part of this review is dedicated to a detailed account of recent efforts to improve the calculation of these two contributions with either a data-driven, dispersive approach, or a first-principle, lattice-QCD approach. The final result reads $a_\mu^\text{SM}=116\,591\,810(43)\times 10^{-11}$ and is smaller than the Brookhaven measurement by 3.7$\sigma$. The experimental uncertainty will soon be reduced by up to a factor four by the new experiment currently running at Fermilab, and also by the future J-PARC experiment. This and the prospects to further reduce the theoretical uncertainty in the near future-which are also discussed here-make this quantity one of the most promising places to look for evidence of new physics.
This document collects a written summary of all contributions presented at the workshop "$\alpha_s$(2019): Precision measurements of the strong coupling" held at ECT* (Trento) in Feb. 11--15, 2019. The workshop explored in depth the latest developments on the determination of the QCD coupling $\alpha_s$ from the key categories where high precision measurements are available: (i) lattice QCD, (ii) hadronic $\tau$ decays, (iii) deep-inelastic scattering and parton distribution functions, (iv) event shapes, jet cross sections, and other hadronic final-states in $e^+e^-$ collisions, (v) Z boson and W boson hadronic decays, and (vi) hadronic final states in p-p collisions. The status of the current theoretical and experimental uncertainties associated to each extraction method, and future perspectives were thoroughly reviewed. Novel $\alpha_s$ determination approaches were discussed, as well as the combination method used to obtain a world-average value of the QCD coupling at the Z mass pole.
We discuss sum-rule determinations of $\alpha_s$ from non-strange hadronic $\tau$-decay data. We investigate, in particular, the reliability of the assumptions underlying the "truncated OPE strategy," which specifies a certain treatment of non-perturbative contributions, and which was employed in Refs. [1-3]. Here, we test this strategy by applying the strategy to the $R$-ratio obtained from $e^+e^-$ data, which extend beyond the $\tau$ mass, and, based on the outcome of these tests, we demonstrate the failure of this strategy.We then present a brief overview of new results on the form of duality-violating non-perturbative contributions, which are conspicuously present in the experimentally determined spectral functions. As we show, with the current precision claimed for the extraction of $\alpha_s$, including a representation of duality violations is unavoidable if one wishes to avoid uncontrolled theoretical errors.
Using spectral data from non-strange and strange hadronic tau decays, flavor-breaking chiral sum rules involving the flavor ud and us current-current two-point functions are constructed and used to determine the SU(3) NNLO low-energy constant combinations C_{61}^r, C_{12}^r+C_{61}^r+C_{80}^r and C_{12}^r-C_{61}^r+C_{80}^r. The first of these determinations updates the results of an earlier analysis by Durr and Kambor, while the latter two are new. The error on the C_{12}^r+C_{61}^r+C_{80}^r is particularly small. Comparisons are made to model estimates for these quantities. The role of the third combination in significantly improving the determination of the NLO low-energy constant L_{10}^r from NNLO analyses of the flavor ud V-A correlator is also highlighted.
We present an analysis of the isospin-one V-A correlator based on our successful simultaneous description of the OPAL V and A non-strange tau spectral data. We discuss the values obtained for the Chiral Perturbation Theory low-energy constants L_10 and C_87 as well as the dimension-six and eight condensates and compare them with those in the literature.
Being a determination at low energies, the analysis of hadronic tau decay data provides a rather precise determination of the strong coupling alpha_s after evolving the result to M_Z. At such a level of precision, even small non-perturbative effects become relevant for the central value and error. While those effects had been taken into account in the framework of the operator product expansion, contributions going beyond it, so-called duality violations, have previously been neglected. The following investigation fills this gap through a finite-energy sum rule analysis of tau decay spectra from the OPAL experiment, including duality violations and performing a consistent fit of all appearing QCD parameters. The resulting values for alpha_s(M_tau) are 0.307(19) in fixed-order perturbation theory and 0.322(26) in contour-improved perturbation theory, which translates to the n_f=5 values 0.1169(25) and 0.1187(32) at M_Z, respectively.
We discuss some key issues associated with duality-violating and non-perturbative OPE contributions to the theoretical representations of light quark current-current two-point functions and relevant to precision determinations of alpha_s from hadronic tau decay and electroproduction cross-section data. We demonstrate that analyses with an explicit representation of duality-violating effects are required to bring theoretical errors in such extractions under control, motivating the accompanying paper in these proceedings, which presents the results of such an analysis.
We discuss a preliminary study of the impact of duality violations on extractions from tau decay data of the D=6 VEVs which determine chiral limit Standard Model K-->pi pi matrix elements of the electroweak penguin operators.
Evidence is presented for the necessity of including duality violations in a consistent description of spectral function moments employed in the precision determination of $\alpha_s$ from $\tau$ decay. A physically motivated ansatz for duality violations in the spectral functions enables us to perform fits to spectral moments employing both pinched and unpinched weights. We describe our analysis strategy and provide some preliminary findings. Final numerical results await completion of an ongoing re-determination of the ALEPH covariance matrices incorporating correlations due to the unfolding procedure which are absent from the currently posted versions. To what extent this issue affects existing analyses and our own work will require further study.
With the help of the Mellin-Barnes transform, we show how to simultaneously resum the expansion of a heavy-quark correlator around q^2=0 (low-energy), q^2= 4 m^2 (threshold, where m is the quark mass) and q^2=-\infty (high-energy) in a systematic way. We exemplify the method for the perturbative vector correlator at O(alpha_s^2) and O(alpha_s^3). We show that the coefficients, Omega(n), of the Taylor expansion of the vacuum polarization function in terms of the conformal variable \omega admit, for large n, an expansion in powers of 1/n (up to logarithms of n) that we can calculate exactly. This large-n expansion has a sign-alternating component given by the logarithms of the OPE, and a fixed-sign component given by the logarithms of the threshold expansion in the external momentum q^2.
Duality Violations (DVs) is a nickname for the failure of the Operator Product Expansion to describe QCD correlators on the physical axis. Using a physically motivated ansatz, a fit to the spectral functions allows us to get a quantitative estimate for the amount of DVs present in tau data. The quality of the fit turns out to be better than expected. Since DVs have not been included in the past in the determination of alpha_s, they amount to an additional theoretical error which we estimate could be δalpha_s(m_{tau}) \sim 0.003-0.010 . Our ansatz satisfies, in particular, the 1st Weinberg sum rule, which shows that this sum rule is not enough to force DVs to vanish.
The vacuum polarization of a quark, when considered in terms of the external momentum q^2, is a function of the Stieltjes type. Consequently, the mathematical theory of Pade Approximants assures that the full function, at any finite value of q^2 away from the physical cut, can be reconstructed from its low-energy power expansion around q^2=0. We illustrate this point by applying this theory to the vacuum polarization of a heavy quark and obtain the value of the constant K^(2) governing the threshold expansion at order O(alpha_s^2).
Pade Approximants can be used to go beyond Vector Meson Dominance in a systematic approximation. We illustrate this fact with the case of the pion vector form factor and extract values for the first two coefficients of its Taylor expansion. Pade Approximants are shown to be a useful and simple tool for incorporating high-energy information, allowing an improved determination of these Taylor coefficients.
Using a sequence of rational approximants and the large-Nc limit of QCD, we estimate the value of the low-energy constant C_87 which appears in the Lagrangian of Chiral Perturbation Theory at O(p^6).
We point out that resonance saturation in QCD can be understood in the large-Nc limit from the mathematical theory of Pade Approximants to meromorphic functions. These approximants are rational functions which encompass any saturation with a finite number of resonances as a particular example, explaining several results which have appeared in the literature. We review the main properties of Pade Approximants with the help of a toy model for the two-point correlator, paying particular attention to the relationship among the Chiral Expansion, the Operator Product Expansion and the resonance spectrum. In passing, we also comment on an old proposal made by Migdal in 1977 which has recently attracted much attention in the context of AdS/QCD models. Finally, we apply the simplest Pade Approximant to the correlator in the real case of QCD. The general conclusion is that a rational approximant may reliably describe a Green's function in the Euclidean, but the same is not true in the Minkowski regime due to the appearance of unphysical poles and/or residues.
We study the issue of duality violations in the VV-AA vacuum polarization function in the chiral limit. This is done with the help of a model with an expansion in inverse powers of the number of colors, Nc, allowing us to consider resonances with a finite width. Due to these duality violations, the Operator Product Expansion (OPE) and the moments of the spectral function (e.g. the Weinberg sum rules) do not match at finite momentum, and we analyze this difference in detail. We also perform a comparative study of many of the different methods proposed in the literature for the extraction of the OPE parameters and find that, when applied to our model, they all fare quite similarly. In fact, the model strongly suggests that a significant improvement in precision can only be expected after duality violations are included. To this end, we propose a method to parameterize these duality violations. The method works quite well for the model, and we hope that it may also be useful in future determinations of OPE parameters in QCD.