We calculate charmed meson spectra and decay constants in lattice QCD employing one-loop $O(a)$ improved heavy quark action and axial-vector currents. In quenched simulations at $a sim 0.1$ fm with the plaquette gauge action as well as a renormalization-group improved one, it is shown that the deviation from the continuum dispersion relation and the violation of space-time symmetry for the pseudoscalar meson decay constants are substantially reduced, once the $O(a)$ improvement is applied. Preliminary results with two flavors of dynamical quarks are also presented.
We describe a calculation of heavy-light decay constants including virtual quark loop effects. We have generated dynamical gauge configurations at three $beta$ values using two flavors of Kogut-Susskind quarks with a range of masses. These are analyzed with a Wilson valence quark action. Preliminary results based on a ``fat-link clover valence quark action are also reported. Results from the two methods differ by 30 to 50 MeV, which is presumably due to significant - but as yet unobserved - lattice spacing dependence in one or both of the approaches.
We determine masses and decay constants of heavy-heavy and heavy-charm pseudoscalar mesons as a function of heavy quark mass using a fully relativistic formalism known as Highly Improved Staggered Quarks for the heavy quark. We are able to cover the region from the charm quark mass to the bottom quark mass using MILC ensembles with lattice spacing values from 0.15 fm down to 0.044 fm. We obtain f_{B_c} = 0.427(6) GeV; m_{B_c} = 6.285(10) GeV and f_{eta_b} = 0.667(6) GeV. Our value for f_{eta_b} is within a few percent of f_{Upsilon} confirming that spin effects are surprisingly small for heavyonium decay constants. Our value for f_{B_c} is significantly lower than potential model values being used to estimate production rates at the LHC. We discuss the changing physical heavy-quark mass dependence of decay constants from heavy-heavy through heavy-charm to heavy-strange mesons. A comparison between the three different systems confirms that the B_c system behaves in some ways more like a heavy-light system than a heavy-heavy one. Finally we summarise current results on decay constants of gold-plated mesons.
We compute the leptonic decay constants $f_{D^+}$, $f_{D_s}$, and $f_{K^+}$, and the quark-mass ratios $m_c/m_s$ and $m_s/m_l$ in unquenched lattice QCD. We use the MILC highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) ensembles with four dynamical quark flavors. Our primary results are $f_{D^+} = 212.6(0.4)({}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}) mathrm{MeV}$, $f_{D_s} = 249.0(0.3)({}^{+1.1}_{-1.5}) mathrm{MeV}$, and $f_{D_s}/f_{D^+} = 1.1712(10)({}^{+29}_{-32})$, where the errors are statistical and total systematic, respectively. We also obtain $f_{K^+}/f_{pi^+} = 1.1956(10)({}^{+26}_{-18})$, updating our previous result, and determine the quark-mass ratios $m_s/m_l = 27.35(5)({}^{+10}_{-7})$ and $m_c/m_s = 11.747(19)({}^{+59}_{-43})$. When combined with experimental measurements of the decay rates, our results lead to precise determinations of the CKM matrix elements $|V_{us}| = 0.22487(51) (29)(20)(5)$, $|V_{cd}|=0.217(1) (5)(1)$ and $|V_{cs}|= 1.010(5)(18)(6)$, where the errors are from this calculation of the decay constants, the uncertainty in the experimental decay rates, structure-dependent electromagnetic corrections, and, in the case of $|V_{us}|$, the uncertainty in $|V_{ud}|$, respectively.
We present the first lattice QCD calculation with realistic sea quark content of the D^+ meson decay constant f_{D^+}. We use the MILC Collaborations publicly available ensembles of lattice gauge fields, which have a quark sea with two flavors (up and down) much lighter than a third (strange). We obtain f_{D^+} = 201 +/- 3 +/- 17 MeV, where the errors are statistical and a combination of systematic errors. We also obtain f_{D_s} = 249 +/- 3 +/- 16 MeV for the D_s meson.
We present results on an analysis of the decay constants f_B and f_Bs with two flavours of sea quark. The calculation has been carried out on 3 different bare gauge couplings and 4 sea quark masses at each gauge coupling, with m_pi/m_rho ranging from 0.8 to 0.6. We employ the Fermilab formalism to perform calculations with heavy quarks whose mass is in the range of the b-quark. A detailed comparison with a quenched calculation using the same action is made to elucidate the effects due to the sea quarks.