The nucleon axial charge is calculated as a function of the pion mass in full QCD. Using domain wall valence quarks and improved staggered sea quarks, we present the first calculation with pion masses as light as 354 MeV and volumes as large as (3.5 fm)^3. We show that finite volume effects are small for our volumes and that a constrained fit based on finite volume chiral perturbation theory agrees with experiment within 7% statistical errors.
We report on our calculation of the nucleon axial charge gA in QCD with two flavours of dynamical quarks. A detailed investigation of systematic errors is performed, with a particular focus on contributions from excited states to three-point correlation functions. The use of summed operator insertions allows for a much better control over such contamination. After performing a chiral extrapolation to the physical pion mass, we find gA=1.223 +/- 0.063 (stat) +0.035 -0.060 (syst), in good agreement with the experimental value.
We report on a lattice QCD calculation of the nucleon axial charge, $g_A$, using M{o}bius Domain-Wall fermions solved on the dynamical $N_f=2+1+1$ HISQ ensembles after they are smeared using the gradient-flow algorithm. The calculation is performed with three pion masses, $m_pisim{310,220,130}$ MeV. Three lattice spacings ($asim{0.15,0.12,0.09}$ fm) are used with the heaviest pion mass, while the coarsest two spacings are used on the middle pion mass and only the coarsest spacing is used with the near physical pion mass. On the $m_pisim220$ MeV, $asim0.12$ fm point, a dedicated volume study is performed with $m_pi L sim {3.22,4.29,5.36}$. Using a new strategy motivated by the Feynman-Hellmann Theorem, we achieve a precise determination of $g_A$ with relatively low statistics, and demonstrable control over the excited state, continuum, infinite volume and chiral extrapolation systematic uncertainties, the latter of which remains the dominant uncertainty. Our final determination at 2.6% total uncertainty is $g_A = 1.278(21)(26)$, with the first uncertainty including statistical and systematic uncertainties from fitting and the second including model selection systematics related to the chiral and continuum extrapolation. The largest reduction of the second uncertainty will come from a greater number of pion mass points as well as more precise lattice QCD results near the physical pion mass.
We present results for the nucleon axial charge g_A at a fixed lattice spacing of 1/a=1.73(3) GeV using 2+1 flavors of domain wall fermions on size 16^3x32 and 24^3x64lattices (L=1.8 and 2.7 fm) with length 16 in the fifth dimension. The length of the Monte Carlo trajectory at the lightest m_pi is 7360 units, including 900 for thermalization. We find finite volume effects are larger than the pion mass dependence at m_pi= 330 MeV. We also find that g_A exhibits a scaling with the single variable m_pi L which can also be seen in previous two-flavor domain wall and Wilson fermion calculati ons. Using this scaling to eliminate the finite-volume effect, we obtain g_A = 1.20(6)(4) at the physical pion mass, m_pi = 135 MeV, where the first and second errors are statistical and systematic. The observed finite-volume scaling also appears in similar quenched simulations, but disappear when Vge (2.4 fm)^3. We argue this is a dynamical quark effect.
We report the current status of the on-going lattice-QCD calculations of nucleon isovector axial charge, g_A, using the RBC/UKQCD 2+1-flavor dynamical domain-wall fermion ensembles at lattice cutoff of about a^{-1}=1.4 GeV in a spatial volume (L = 4.6 fm)^3. The result from the ensemble with m_pi = 250 MeV pion mass, corresponding to the finite-size scaling parameter m_pi L sim 5.8, agrees well with an earlier result at a^{-1}=1.7 GeV, L = 2.8 fm, and m_pi = 420 MeV, with similar m_pi L. This suggests the systematic error from excited-state contamination is small in both ensembles and about 10-% deficit in g_A we are observing is likely a finite-size effect that scales with m_pi L. We also report the result from the lighter, m_pi = 170 MeV ensemble.
The axial charge of the triton is investigated using lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Extending previous work at heavier quark masses, calculations are performed using three ensembles of gauge field configurations generated with quark masses corresponding to a pion mass of 450 MeV. Finite-volume energy levels for the triton, as well as for the deuteron and diproton systems, are extracted from analysis of correlation functions computed on these ensembles, and the corresponding energies are extrapolated to infinite volume using finite-volume pionless effective field theory (FVEFT). It is found with high likelihood that there is a compact bound state with the quantum numbers of the triton at these quark masses. The axial current matrix elements are computed using background field techniques on one of the ensembles and FVEFT is again used to determine the axial charge of the proton and triton. A simple quark mass extrapolation of these results and earlier calculations at heavier quark masses leads to a value of the ratio of the triton to proton axial charges at the physical quark masses of $g_A^{^{3}{rm H}}/g_A^p=0.91substack{+0.07 -0.09}$. This result is consistent with the ratio determined from experiment and prefers values less than unity (in which case the triton axial charge would be unmodified from that of the proton), thereby demonstrating that QCD can explain the modification of the axial charge of the triton.