No Arabic abstract
We study the coupled pion-nucleon system (negative parity, isospin 1/2) based on a lattice QCD simulation for nf=2 mass degenerate light quarks. Both, standard 3-quarks baryon operators as well as meson-baryon (4+1)-quark operators are included. This is an exploratory study for just one lattice size and lattice spacing and at a pion mass of 266 MeV. Using the distillation method and variational analysis we determine energy levels of the lowest eigenstates. Comparison with the results of simple 3-quark correlation studies exhibits drastic differences and a new level appears. A clearer picture of the negative parity nucleon spectrum emerges. For the parameters of the simulation we may assume elastic s-wave scattering and can derive values of the phase shift.
We present a lattice QCD study of $Npi$ scattering in the positive-parity nucleon channel, where the puzzling Roper resonance $N^*(1440)$ resides in experiment. The study is based on the PACS-CS ensemble of gauge configurations with $N_f=2+1$ Wilson-clover dynamical fermions, $m_pi simeq 156~$MeV and $Lsimeq 2.9~$fm. In addition to a number of $qqq$ interpolating fields, we implement operators for $Npi$ in $p$-wave and $Nsigma$ in $s$-wave. In the center-of-momentum frame we find three eigenstates below 1.65 GeV. They are dominated by $N(0)$, $N(0)pi(0)pi(0)$ (mixed with $N(0)sigma(0)$) and $N(p)pi(-p)$ with $psimeq 2pi/L$, where momenta are given in parentheses. This is the first simulation where the expected multi-hadron states are found in this channel. The experimental $Npi$ phase-shift would -- in the approximation of purely elastic $Npi$ scattering -- imply an additional eigenstate near the Roper mass $m_Rsimeq 1.43~$GeV for our lattice size. We do not observe any such additional eigenstate, which indicates that $Npi$ elastic scattering alone does not render a low-lying Roper. Coupling with other channels, most notably with $Npipi$, seems to be important for generating the Roper resonance, reinforcing the notion that this state could be a dynamically generated resonance. Our results are in line with most of previous lattice studies based just on $qqq$ interpolators, that did not find a Roper eigenstate below $1.65~$GeV. The study of the coupled-channel scattering including a three-particle decay $Npipi$ remains a challenge.
We determine the $Delta(1232)$ resonance parameters using lattice QCD and the Luscher method. The resonance occurs in elastic pion-nucleon scattering with $J^P=3/2^+$ in the isospin $I = 3/2$, $P$-wave channel. Our calculation is performed with $N_f=2+1$ flavors of clover fermions on a lattice with $Lapprox 2.8$ fm. The pion and nucleon masses are $m_pi =255.4(1.6)$ MeV and $m_N=1073(5)$ MeV, and the strong decay channel $Delta rightarrow pi N$ is found to be above the threshold. To thoroughly map out the energy-dependence of the nucleon-pion scattering amplitude, we compute the spectra in all relevant irreducible representations of the lattice symmetry groups for total momenta up to $vec{P}=frac{2pi}{L}(1,1,1)$, including irreps that mix $S$ and $P$ waves. We perform global fits of the amplitude parameters to up to 21 energy levels, using a Breit-Wigner model for the $P$-wave phase shift and the effective-range expansion for the $S$-wave phase shift. From the location of the pole in the $P$-wave scattering amplitude, we obtain the resonance mass $m_Delta=1378(7)(9)$ MeV and the coupling $g_{Deltatext{-}pi N}=23.8(2.7)(0.9)$.
We present the results of a lattice study of light-cone distribution amplitudes (DAs) of the nucleon and negative parity nucleon resonances using two flavors of dynamical (clover) fermions on lattices of different volumes and pion masses down to m_pi = 150 MeV. We find that the three valence quarks in the proton share their momentum in the proportion 37% : 31% : 31%, where the larger fraction corresponds to the u-quark that carries proton helicity, and determine the value of the wave function at the origin in position space, which turns out to be small compared to the existing estimates based on QCD sum rules. Higher-order moments are constrained by our data and are all compatible with zero within our uncertainties. We also calculate the normalization constants of the higher-twist DAs that are related to the distribution of quark angular momentum. Furthermore, we use the variational method and customized parity projection operators to study the states with negative parity. In this way we are able to separate the contributions of the two lowest states that, as we argue, possibly correspond to N*(1535) and a mixture of N*(1650) and the pion-nucleon continuum, respectively. It turns out that the state that we identify with N*(1535) has a very different DA as compared to both the second observed negative parity state and the nucleon, which may explain the difference in the decay patterns of N*(1535) and N*(1650) observed in experiment.
We report the first Lattice QCD calculation using the almost physical pion mass mpi=149 MeV that agrees with experiment for four fundamental isovector observables characterizing the gross structure of the nucleon: the Dirac and Pauli radii, the magnetic moment, and the quark momentum fraction. The key to this success is the combination of using a nearly physical pion mass and excluding the contributions of excited states. An analogous calculation of the nucleon axial charge governing beta decay has inconsistencies indicating a source of bias at low pion masses not present for the other observables and yields a result that disagrees with experiment.
We present a determination of nucleon-nucleon scattering phase shifts for l >= 0. The S, P, D and F phase shifts for both the spin-triplet and spin-singlet channels are computed with lattice Quantum ChromoDynamics. For l > 0, this is the first lattice QCD calculation using the Luscher finite-volume formalism. This required the design and implementation of novel lattice methods involving displaced sources and momentum-space cubic sinks. To demonstrate the utility of our approach, the calculations were performed in the SU(3)-flavor limit where the light quark masses have been tuned to the physical strange quark mass, corresponding to m_pi = m_K ~ 800 MeV. In this work, we have assumed that only the lowest partial waves contribute to each channel, ignoring the unphysical partial wave mixing that arises within the finite-volume formalism. This assumption is only valid for sufficiently low energies; we present evidence that it holds for our study using two different channels. Two spatial volumes of V ~ (3.5 fm)^3 and V ~ (4.6 fm)^3 were used. The finite-volume spectrum is extracted from the exponential falloff of the correlation functions. Said spectrum is mapped onto the infinite volume phase shifts using the generalization of the Luscher formalism for two-nucleon systems.