No Arabic abstract
We determine $D$ and $D_s$ decay constants from lattice QCD with 2% errors, 4 times better than experiment and previous theory: $f_{D_s}$ = 241(3) MeV, $f_D$ = 207(4) MeV and $f_{D_s}/f_D$ = 1.164(11). We also obtain $f_K/f_{pi}$ = 1.189(7) and $(f_{D_s}/f_D)/(f_K/f_{pi})$ = 0.979(11). Combining with experiment gives $V_{us}$=0.2262(14) and $V_{cs}/V_{cd}$ of 4.43(41). We use a highly improved quark discretization on MILC gluon fields that include realistic sea quarks fixing the $u/d, s$ and $c$ masses from the $pi$, $K$, and $eta_c$ meson masses. This allows a stringent test against experiment for $D$ and $D_s$ masses for the first time (to within 7 MeV).
We determine the decay constants of the pi and K mesons on gluon field configurations from the MILC collaboration including u, d, s and c quarks. We use three values of the lattice spacing and u/d quark masses going down to the physical value. We use the w_0 parameter to fix the relative lattice spacing and f_pi to fix the overall scale. This allows us to obtain a value for f{K^+}/f{pi^+} = 1.1916(21). Comparing to the ratio of experimental leptonic decay rates gives |Vus| = 0.22564(28){Br(K^+)}(20){EM}(40){latt}(5){Vud} and the test of unitarity of the first row of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix: |Vud|^2+|Vus|^2+|Vub|^2 - 1 = 0.00009(51).
We present a study of the $D$ and $B$ leptonic decay constants on the MILC $N_f=2+1$ asqtad gauge ensembles using asqtad-improved staggered light quarks and clover heavy quarks in the Fermilab interpretation. Our previous analysis cite{Bazavov:2011aa} computed the decay constants at lattice spacings $a approx 0.14, 0.11$ and $0.083$ fm. We have extended the simulations to finer $a approx 0.058$ and $0.043$ fm lattice spacings, and have also increased statistics; this allows us to address many important sources of uncertainty. Technical advances include a two-step two-point fit procedure, better tuning of the heavy quark masses and a better determination of the axial-vector current matching. The present analysis remains blinded, so here we focus on the improvements and their predicted impact on the error budget compared to the prior analysis.
We calculate the leptonic decay constants of B_{(s)} and D_{(s)} mesons in lattice QCD using staggered light quarks and Fermilab bottom and charm quarks. We compute the heavy-light meson correlation functions on the MILC asqtad-improved staggered gauge configurations which include the effects of three light dynamical sea quarks. We simulate with several values of the light valence- and sea-quark masses (down to ~m_s/10) and at three lattice spacings (a ~ 0.15, 0.12, and 0.09 fm) and extrapolate to the physical up and down quark masses and the continuum using expressions derived in heavy-light meson staggered chiral perturbation theory. We renormalize the heavy-light axial current using a mostly nonperturbative method such that only a small correction to unity must be computed in lattice perturbation theory and higher-order terms are expected to be small. We obtain f_{B^+} = 196.9(8.9) MeV, f_{B_s} = 242.0(9.5) MeV, f_{D^+} = 218.9(11.3) MeV, f_{D_s} = 260.1(10.8) MeV, and the SU(3) flavor-breaking ratios f_{B_s}/f_{B} = 1.229(26) and f_{D_s}/f_{D} = 1.188(25), where the numbers in parentheses are the total statistical and systematic uncertainties added in quadrature.
We calculate the leptonic decay constants of heavy-light pseudoscalar mesons with charm and bottom quarks in lattice quantum chromodynamics on four-flavor QCD gauge-field configurations with dynamical $u$, $d$, $s$, and $c$ quarks. We analyze over twenty isospin-symmetric ensembles with six lattice spacings down to $aapprox 0.03$~fm and several values of the light-quark mass down to the physical value $frac{1}{2}(m_u+m_d)$. We employ the highly-improved staggered-quark (HISQ) action for the sea and valence quarks; on the finest lattice spacings, discretization errors are sufficiently small that we can calculate the $B$-meson decay constants with the HISQ action for the first time directly at the physical $b$-quark mass. We obtain the most precise determinations to-date of the $D$- and $B$-meson decay constants and their ratios, $f_{D^+} = 212.7(0.6)$~MeV, $f_{D_s} = 249.9(0.4)$~MeV, $f_{D_s}/f_{D^+} = 1.1749(16)$, $f_{B^+} = 189.4 (1.4)$~MeV, $f_{B_s} = 230.7(1.3)$~MeV, $f_{B_s}/f_{B^+} = 1.2180(47)$, where the errors include statistical and all systematic uncertainties. Our results for the $B$-meson decay constants are three times more precise than the previous best lattice-QCD calculations, and bring the QCD errors in the Standard-Model predictions for the rare leptonic decays $overline{mathcal{B}}(B_s to mu^+mu^-) = 3.64(11) times 10^{-9}$, $overline{mathcal{B}}(B^0 to mu^+mu^-) = 1.00(3) times 10^{-10}$, and $overline{mathcal{B}}(B^0 to mu^+mu^-)/overline{mathcal{B}}(B_s to mu^+mu^-) = 0.0273(9)$ to well below other sources of uncertainty. As a byproduct of our analysis, we also update our previously published results for the light-quark-mass ratios and the scale-setting quantities $f_{p4s}$, $M_{p4s}$, and $R_{p4s}$. We obtain the most precise lattice-QCD determination to date of the ratio $f_{K^+}/f_{pi^+} = 1.1950(^{+16}_{-23})$~MeV.
We present the leptonic decay constants fDs and fD+ computed on the MILC collaborations 2+1 flavor asqtad gauge ensembles. We use clover heavy quarks with the Fermilab interpretation and improved staggered light quarks. The simultaneous chiral and continuum extrapolation, which determines both decay constants, includes partially-quenched lattice results at lattice spacings a ~ 0:09, 0:12 and 0:15 fm. We have made several recent improvements in our analysis: a) we include terms in the fit describing leading order heavy-quark discretization effects, b) we have adopted a more precise input r1 value consistent with our other D and B meson studies, c) we have retuned the input bare charm masses based upon the new r1. Our preliminary results are fDs = 260 +/-10 MeV and fD+ = 217 +/-10 MeV.