No Arabic abstract
Working with a large basis of covariant derivative-based meson interpolating fields we demonstrate the feasibility of reliably extracting multiple excited states using a variational method. The study is performed on quenched anisotropic lattices with clover quarks at the charm mass. We demonstrate how a knowledge of the continuum limit of a lattice interpolating field can give additional spin-assignment information, even at a single lattice spacing, via the overlap factors of interpolating field and state. Excited state masses are systematically high with respect to quark potential model predictions and, where they exist, experimental states. We conclude that this is most likely a result of the quenched approximation.
We present a detailed study of the charmonium spectrum using anisotropic lattice QCD. We first derive a tree-level improved clover quark action on the anisotropic lattice for arbitrary quark mass. The heavy quark mass dependences of the improvement coefficients, i.e. the ratio of the hopping parameters $zeta=K_t/K_s$ and the clover coefficients $c_{s,t}$, are examined at the tree level. We then compute the charmonium spectrum in the quenched approximation employing $xi = a_s/a_t = 3$ anisotropic lattices. Simulations are made with the standard anisotropic gauge action and the anisotropic clover quark action at four lattice spacings in the range $a_s$=0.07-0.2 fm. The clover coefficients $c_{s,t}$ are estimated from tree-level tadpole improvement. On the other hand, for the ratio of the hopping parameters $zeta$, we adopt both the tree-level tadpole-improved value and a non-perturbative one. We calculate the spectrum of S- and P-states and their excitations. The results largely depend on the scale input even in the continuum limit, showing a quenching effect. When the lattice spacing is determined from the $1P-1S$ splitting, the deviation from the experimental value is estimated to be $sim$30% for the S-state hyperfine splitting and $sim$20% for the P-state fine structure. Our results are consistent with previous results at $xi = 2$ obtained by Chen when the lattice spacing is determined from the Sommer scale $r_0$. We also address the problem with the hyperfine splitting that different choices of the clover coefficients lead to disagreeing results in the continuum limit.
We apply black-box methods, i.e. where the performance of the method does not depend upon initial guesses, to extract excited-state energies from Euclidean-time hadron correlation functions. In particular, we extend the widely used effective-mass method to incorporate multiple correlation functions and produce effective mass estimates for multiple excited states. In general, these excited-state effective masses will be determined by finding the roots of some polynomial. We demonstrate the method using sample lattice data to determine excited-state energies of the nucleon and compare the results to other energy-level finding techniques.
Excited state contamination remains one of the most challenging sources of systematic uncertainty to control in lattice QCD calculations of nucleon matrix elements and form factors. Most lattice QCD collaborations advocate for the use of high-statistics calculations at large time separations ($t_{rm sep}gtrsim1$ fm) to combat the signal-to-noise degradation. In this work we demonstrate that, for the nucleon axial charge, $g_A$, the alternative strategy of utilizing a large number of relatively low-statistics calculations at short to medium time separations ($0.2lesssim t_{rm sep}lesssim1$ fm), combined with a multi-state analysis, provides a more robust and economical method of quantifying and controlling the excited state systematic uncertainty, including correlated late-time fluctuations that may bias the ground state. We show that two classes of excited states largely cancel in the ratio of the three-point to two-point functions, leaving the third class, the transition matrix elements, as the dominant source of contamination. On an $m_piapprox310$ MeV ensemble, we observe the expected exponential suppression of excited state contamination in the Feynman-Hellmann correlation function relative to the standard three-point function; the excited states of the regular three-point function reduce to the 1% level for $t_{rm sep} >2$ fm while, for the Feynman-Hellmann correlation function, they are suppressed to 1% at $t_{rm sep}approx1$ fm. Independent analyses of the three-point and Feynman-Hellmann correlators yield consistent results for the ground state. However, a combined analysis allows for a more detailed and robust understanding of the excited state contamination, improving the demonstration that the ground state parameters are stable against variations in the excited state model, the number of excited states, and the truncation of early-time or late-time numerical data.
We present our final results for the excited charmonium spectrum from a quenched calculation using a fully relativistic anisotropic lattice QCD action. A detailed excited charmonium spectrum is obtained, including both the exotic hybrids (with $J^{PC} = 1^{-+}, 0^{+-}, 2^{+-}$) and orbitally excited mesons (with orbital angular momentum up to 3). Using three different lattice spacings (0.197, 0.131, and 0.092 fm), we perform a continuum extrapolation of the spectrum. We convert our results in lattice units to physical values using lattice scales set by the $^1P_1-1S$ splitting. The lowest lying exotic hybrid $1^{-+}$ lies at 4.428(41) GeV, slightly above the $D^{**}D$ (S+P wave) threshold of 4.287 GeV. Another two exotic hybrids $0^{+-}$ and $2^{+-}$ are determined to be 4.70(17) GeV and 4.895(88) GeV, respectively. Our finite volume analysis confirms that our lattices are large enough to accommodate all the excited states reported here.
Progress in computing the spectrum of excited baryons and mesons in lattice QCD is described. Large sets of spatially-extended hadron operators are used. The need for multi-hadron operators in addition to single-hadron operators is emphasized, necessitating the use of a new stochastic method of treating the low-lying modes of quark propagation which exploits Laplacian Heaviside quark-field smearing. A new glueball operator is tested, and computing the mixing of this glueball operator with a quark-antiquark operator and multiple two-pion operators is shown to be feasible.