Using established relations between the scattering matrix in infinite volume and the two-particle spectrum in a periodic box, we compute the mass and width of the rho meson from simulations of N_f=2 flavors of dynamical clover fermions at small pion masses 2 m_pi < m_rho.
We calculate the light meson spectrum and the light quark masses by lattice QCD simulation, treating all light quarks dynamically and employing the Iwasaki gluon action and the nonperturbatively O(a)-improved Wilson quark action. The calculations are made at the squared lattice spacings at an equal distance a^2~0.005, 0.01 and 0.015 fm^2, and the continuum limit is taken assuming an O(a^2) discretization error. The light meson spectrum is consistent with experiment. The up, down and strange quark masses in the bar{MS} scheme at 2 GeV are bar{m}=(m_{u}+m_{d})/2=3.55^{+0.65}_{-0.28} MeV and m_s=90.1^{+17.2}_{-6.1} MeV where the error includes statistical and all systematic errors added in quadrature. These values contain the previous estimates obtained with the dynamical u and d quarks within the error.
We present preliminary results from UKQCD simulations at light quark masses using two flavours of non-pertubatively improved Wilson fermions. We report on the performance of the standard HMC algorithm at these quark masses where m_pi/m_rho < 0.5 in comparison with simulations using improved staggered quarks.
We determine the second Mellin moment of the isovector quark parton distribution function <x>_{u-d} from lattice QCD with N_f=2 sea quark flavours, employing the non-perturbatively improved Wilson-Sheikholeslami-Wohlert action at a pseudoscalar mass of 157(6) MeV. The result is converted non-perturbatively to the RI-MOM scheme and then perturbatively to the MSbar scheme at a scale mu = 2 GeV. As the quark mass is reduced we find the lattice prediction to approach the value extracted from experiments.
We investigate the $I=1$ $pi pi$ interaction using the HAL QCD method in lattice QCD. We employ the (2+1)-flavor gauge configurations on $32^3 times 64$ lattice at the lattice spacing $a approx 0.0907$ fm and $m_{pi} approx 411$ MeV, in which the $rho$ meson appears as a resonance state. We find that all-to-all propagators necessary in this calculation can be obtained with reasonable precision by a combination of three techniques, the one-end trick, the sequential propagator, and the covariant approximation averaging (CAA). The non-local $I=1$ $pi pi$ potential is determined at the next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^2$LO) of the derivative expansion for the first time, and the resonance parameters of the $rho$ meson are extracted. The obtained $rho$ meson mass is found to be consistent with the value in the literature, while the value of the coupling $g_{rho pi pi}$ turns out to be somewhat larger. The latter observation is most likely attributed to the lack of low-energy information in our lattice setup with the center-of-mass frame. Such a limitation may appear in other P-wave resonant systems and we discuss possible improvement in future. With this caution in mind, we positively conclude that we can reasonably extract the N$^2$LO potential and resonance parameters even in the system requiring the all-to-all propagators in the HAL QCD method, which opens up new possibilities for the study of resonances in lattice QCD.
We calculate the parameters describing elastic $I=1$, $P$-wave $pipi$ scattering using lattice QCD with $2+1$ flavors of clover fermions. Our calculation is performed with a pion mass of $m_pi approx 320::{rm MeV}$ and a lattice size of $Lapprox 3.6$ fm. We construct the two-point correlation matrices with both quark-antiquark and two-hadron interpolating fields using a combination of smeared forward, sequential and stochastic propagators. The spectra in all relevant irreducible representations for total momenta $|vec{P}| leq sqrt{3} frac{2pi}{L}$ are extracted with two alternative methods: a variational analysis as well as multi-exponential matrix fits. We perform an analysis using Luschers formalism for the energies below the inelastic thresholds, and investigate several phase shift models, including possible nonresonant contributions. We find that our data are well described by the minimal Breit-Wigner form, with no statistically significant nonresonant component. In determining the $rho$ resonance mass and coupling we compare two different approaches: fitting the individually extracted phase shifts versus fitting the $t$-matrix model directly to the energy spectrum. We find that both methods give consistent results, and at a pion mass of $am_{pi}=0.18295(36)_{stat}$ obtain $g_{rhopipi} = 5.69(13)_{stat}(16)_{sys}$, $am_rho = 0.4609(16)_{stat}(14)_{sys}$, and $am_{rho}/am_{N} = 0.7476(38)_{stat}(23)_{sys} $, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is the systematic uncertainty due to the choice of fit ranges.