No Arabic abstract
We investigate finite size effects of the pion matrix element of the non-singlet, twist-2 operator corresponding to the average momentum of non-singlet quark densities. Using the quenched approximation, they come out to be surprisingly large when compared to the finite size effects of the pion mass. As a consequence, simulations of corresponding nucleon matrix elements could be affected by finite size effects even stronger which could lead to serious systematic uncertainties in their evaluation.
We give a continuum limit value of the lowest moment of a twist-2 operator in pion states from non-perturbative lattice calculations. We find that the non-perturbatively obtained renormalization group invariant matrix element is <x>_{RGI} = 0.179(11), which corresponds to <x>^{MSbar}(2 GeV) = 0.246(15). In obtaining the renormalization group invariant matrix element, we have controlled important systematic errors that appear in typical lattice simulations, such as non-perturbative renormalization, finite size effects and effects of a non-vanishing lattice spacing. The crucial limitation of our calculation is the use of the quenched approximation. Another question that remains not fully clarified is the chiral extrapolation of the numerical data.
We present the first exploratory lattice QCD calculation of the pion valence quark distribution extracted from spatially separated current-current correlations in coordinate space. We show that an antisymmetric combination of vector and axial-vector currents provides direct information on the pion valence quark distribution. Using the collinear factorization approach, we calculate the perturbative tree-level kernel for this current combination and extract the pion valence distribution. The main goal of this article is to demonstrate the efficacy of this general lattice QCD approach in the reliable extraction of parton distributions. With controllable power corrections and a good understanding of the lattice systematics, this method has the potential to serve as a complementary to the many efforts to extract parton distributions in global analyses from experimentally measured cross sections. We perform our calculation on an ensemble of 2+1 flavor QCD using the isotropic-clover fermion action, with lattice dimensions $32^3times 96$ at a lattice spacing mbox{$a=0.127$ fm} and the quark mass equivalent to a pion mass $m_pi simeq 416$ MeV.
We study the Bose-Einstein condensation of a finite size pion gas subject to the influence of a magnetic field. We find the expressions for the critical chemical potential and temperature for the onset of condensation. We show that for values of the external magnetic flux larger than the elemental flux, the critical temperature is larger than the one obtained by considering only finite size effects. We use experimentally reported values of pion source sizes and multiplicities at LHC energies to show that if the magnetic flux, produced initially in peripheral heavy-ion collision, is at least partially preserved up to the hadronic phase, the combined finite size and magnetic field effects give rise to a critical temperature above the kinetic freeze-out temperature. We discuss the implications for the evolution of the pion system created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.
In order to reduce the current hadronic uncertainties in the theory prediction for the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, lattice calculations need to reach sub-percent accuracy on the hadronic-vacuum-polarization contribution. This requires the inclusion of $mathcal{O}(alpha)$ electromagnetic corrections. The inclusion of electromagnetic interactions in lattice simulations is known to generate potentially large finite-size effects suppressed only by powers of the inverse spatial extent. In this paper we derive an analytic expression for the $mathrm{QED}_{mathrm{L}}$ finite-volume corrections to the two-pion contribution to the hadronic vacuum polarization at next-to-leading order in the electromagnetic coupling in scalar QED. The leading term is found to be of order $1/L^{3}$ where $L$ is the spatial extent. A $1/L^{2}$ term is absent since the current is neutral and a photon far away thus sees no charge and we show that this result is universal. Our analytical results agree with results from the numerical evaluation of loop integrals as well as simulations of lattice scalar $U(1)$ gauge theory with stochastically generated photon fields. In the latter case the agreement is up to exponentially suppressed finite-volume effects. For completeness we also calculate the hadronic vacuum polarization in infinite volume using a basis of 2-loop master integrals.
In order to reach (sub-)per cent level precision in lattice calculations of the hadronic vacuum polarisation, isospin breaking corrections must be included. This requires introducing QED on the lattice, and the associated finite-size effects are potentially large due to the absence of a mass gap. This means that the finite-size effects scale as an inverse polynomial in $L$ rather than being exponentially suppressed. Considering the $mathcal{O}(alpha)$ corrected hadronic vacuum polarisation in QED$_{mathrm{L}}$ with scalar QED as an effective theory, we show that the first possible term, which is of order $1/L^{2}$, vanishes identically so that the finite-size effects start at order $1/L^{3}$. This cancellation is understood from the neutrality of the currents involved, and we show that this cancellation is universal by also including form factors for the pions. We find good numerical agreement with lattice perturbation theory calculations, as well as, up to exponentially suppressed terms, scalar QED lattice simulations.