No Arabic abstract
We discuss near-conformal gauge theories beyond the standard model (BSM) where interesting results on the twelve-flavor $beta$-function of massless fermions in the fundamental representation of the SU(3) color gauge group and dilaton tests of the light scalar with two massless fermions in the two-index symmetric tensor (sextet) representation can be viewed as parts of the same BSM paradigm under investigation. We report results from high precision analysis of the twelve-flavor $beta$-function cite{Fodor:2016zil} refuting its published IRFP cite{Cheng:2014jba,Hasenfratz:2016dou}. We present our objections to recent claims cite{Hasenfratz:2017mdh,Hasenfratz:2017qyr} for non-universal behavior of staggered fermions used in our analysis. We also report our first analysis of dilaton tests of the light $0^{++}$ scalar in the sextet model and comment on related post-conference developments. The dilaton test is the main thrust of this conference contribution including presentation #405 on the $n_f=12$ $beta$-function and presentation #260 on dilaton tests of the sextet model. They are both selected from the near-conformal BSM paradigm.
We report new results from high precision analysis of an important BSM gauge theory with twelve massless fermion flavors in the fundamental representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. The range of the renormalized gauge coupling is extended from our earlier work {Fodor:2016zil} to probe the existence of an infrared fixed point (IRFP) in the $beta$-function reported at two different locations, originally in {Cheng:2014jba} and at a new location in {Hasenfratz:2016dou}. We find no evidence for the IRFP of the $beta$-function in the extended range of the renormalized gauge coupling, in disagreement with {Cheng:2014jba,Hasenfratz:2016dou}. New arguments to guard the existence of the IRFP remain unconvincing {Hasenfratz:2017mdh}, including recent claims of an IRFP with ten massless fermion flavors {Chiu:2016uui,Chiu:2017kza} which we also rule out. Predictions of the recently completed 5-loop QCD $beta$-function for general flavor number are discussed in this context.
We study the discrete beta function of SU(3) gauge theory with Nf=12 massless fermions in the fundamental representation. Using an nHYP-smeared staggered lattice action and an improved gradient flow running coupling $tilde g_c^2(L)$ we determine the continuum-extrapolated discrete beta function up to $g_c^2 approx 8.2$. We observe an IR fixed point at $g_{star}^2 = 7.3left(_{-2}^{+8}right)$ in the $c = sqrt{8t} / L = 0.25$ scheme, and $g_{star}^2 = 7.3left(_{-3}^{+6}right)$ with c=0.3, combining statistical and systematic uncertainties in quadrature. The systematic effects we investigate include the stability of the $(a / L) to 0$ extrapolations, the interpolation of $tilde g_c^2(L)$ as a function of the bare coupling, the improvement of the gradient flow running coupling, and the discretization of the energy density. In an appendix we observe that the resulting systematic errors increase dramatically upon combining smaller $c lesssim 0.2$ with smaller $L leq 12$, leading to an IR fixed point at $g_{star}^2 = 5.9(1.9)$ in the c=0.2 scheme, which resolves to $g_{star}^2 = 6.9left(_{-1}^{+6}right)$ upon considering only $L geq 16$. At the IR fixed point we measure the leading irrelevant critical exponent to be $gamma_g^{star} = 0.26(2)$, comparable to perturbative estimates.
Based on lattice simulations using highly improved staggered quarks for twelve-flavor QCD with several bare fermion masses, we observe a flavor-singlet scalar state lighter than the pion in the correlators of fermionic interpolating operators. The same state is also investigated using correlators of gluonic interpolating operators. Combined with our previous study, that showed twelve-flavor QCD to be consistent with being in the conformal window, we infer that the lightness of the scalar state is due to infrared conformality. This result shed some light on the possibility of a light composite Higgs boson (technidilaton) in walking technicolor theories.
We report the calculation of the flavor-singlet scalar in the SU(3) gauge theory with the degenerate twelve fermions in the fundamental representation using a HISQ-type action at a fixed $beta$. In order to reduce the large statistical error coming from the vacuum-subtracted disconnected correlator, we employ a noise reduction method and a large number of configurations. We observe that the flavor-singlet scalar is lighter than the pion in this theory from the calculations with the fermion bilinear and gluonic operators. This peculiar feature is considered to be due to the infrared conformality of this theory, and it is a promissing signal for a walking technicolor, where a light composite Higgs boson is expected to emerge by approximate conformal dynamics.
We study infrared conformality of the twelve-flavor QCD on the lattice. Utilizing the highly improved staggered quarks (HISQ) type action which is useful to study the continuum physics, we analyze the lattice data of the mass and the decay constant of a pseudoscalar meson and the mass of a vector meson as well at several values of lattice spacing and fermion mass. Our result is consistent with the conformal hypothesis for the mass anomalous dimension $gamma_m sim 0.4-0.5$.