Howard D. Trottier

Highly improved staggered quarks on the lattice, with applications to charm physics

We use perturbative Symanzik improvement to create a new staggered-quark action (HISQ) that has greatly reduced one-loop taste-exchange errors, no tree-level order a{sup 2} errors, and no tree-level order (am){sup 4} errors to leading order in the quarks velocity v/c. We demonstrate with simulations that the resulting action has taste-exchange interactions that are 3-4 times smaller than the widely used ASQTAD action. We show how to bound errors due to taste exchange by comparing ASQTAD and HISQ simulations, and demonstrate with simulations that such errors are likely no more than 1% when HISQ is used for light quarks at lattice spacings of 1/10 fm or less. The suppression of (am){sup 4} errors also makes HISQ the most accurate discretization currently available for simulating c quarks. We demonstrate this in a new analysis of the {psi}-{eta}{sub c} mass splitting using the HISQ action on lattices where am{sub c}=0.43 and 0.66, with full-QCD gluon configurations (from MILC). We obtain a result of 111(5) MeV which compares well with the experiment. We discuss applications of this formalism to D physics and present our first high-precision results for D{sub s} mesons.

Semileptonic decays of d mesons in three-flavor lattice QCD.

We present the first three-flavor lattice QCD calculations for D-->pilnu and D-->Klnu semileptonic decays. Simulations are carried out using ensembles of unquenched gauge fields generated by the MILC Collaboration. With an improved staggered action for light quarks, we are able to simulate at light quark masses down to 1/8 of the strange mass. Consequently, the systematic error from the chiral extrapolation is much smaller than in previous calculations with Wilson-type light quarks. Our results for the form factors at q(2)=0 are f(D-->pi)(+)(0)=0.64(3)(6) and f(D-->K)(+)(0)=0.73(3)(7), where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic, added in quadrature. Combining our results with experimental branching ratios, we obtain the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements |V(cd)|=0.239(10)(24)(20) and |V(cs)|=0.969(39)(94)(24), where the last errors are from experimental uncertainties.

Semileptonic D→π/K and B→π/D decays in 2+1 flavor lattice QCD

We present results for form factors of semileptonic decays of D and B mesons in 2 + 1 flavor lattice QCD using the MILC gauge configurations. With an improved staggered action for light quarks, we successfully reduce the systematic error from the chiral extrapolation. The results for D decays are in agreement with experimental ones. The results for B decays are preliminary. Combining our results with experimental branching ratios, we then obtain the CKM matrix elements | V c d | , | V c s | , | V c b | and | v u b | . We also check CKM unitarity, for the first time, using only lattice QCD as the theoretical input.

Constrained curve fitting

We survey techniques for constrained curve fitting, based upon Bayesian statistics, that offer significant advantages over conventional techniques used by lattice field theorists.

Charmed-meson decay constants in three-flavor lattice QCD

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(Ds)=249+/-3+/-16 MeV for the Ds meson.

High-Precision Charm-Quark Mass from Current-Current Correlators in Lattice and Continuum QCD

We use lattice QCD simulations, with MILC configurations and HISQ

Precise Charm to Strange Mass Ratio and Light Quark Masses from Full Lattice QCD

c

First determination of the strange and light quark masses from full lattice QCD

-quark propagators, to make very precise determinations of moments of charm-quark pseudoscalar, vector and axial-vector correlators. These moments are combined with new four-loop results from continuum perturbation theory to obtain several new determinations of the

Heavy-light mesons with staggered light quarks

\msb

Perturbative expansions from Monte Carlo simulations at weak coupling: Wilson loops and the static-quark self-energy

mass of the charm quark. We find