Search

We examine one-flavour $SU(N_c)$ gauge theories, where $N_c$ denotes the number of colors, with one fermion in the antisymmetric representation as a candidate to approximate $\mathcal{N}=1$ super Yang Mills due to their equivalence in the large-$N_c$ limit. Summarising results on spectral evaluations of $N_c=3$, we will report on the progress of dynamical calculations for $N_c>3$. We discuss cut-off effects and challenges in configuration generation., Comment: Proceedings contribution to "The 40th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2023)"

We discuss the main issues in dealing with heavy quarks on the lattice and shortly present the different approaches used. We discuss a selection of computations covering first the b-quark mass and the B(s) meson decay constants as the consolidated results (neglecting isospin breaking corrections). In the second part we consider recent calculations of form factors for tree-level semileptonic decays with emphasis on the tensions between the results produced by different collaborations. We propose benchmark quantities and tests suited to investigate the origin of such tensions. Finally, we review computations of the bag parameters parameterising neutral meson mixing and provide an overview on a few recent developments in the field., Comment: Updated references. Version accepted by European Physics Journal Special Topics. 16 pages, 7 Figures, 2 Tables

We compute the spectrum of the low-lying mesonic states with vector, scalar and pseudoscalar quantum numbers in QCD with one flavour. With three colours the fundamental and the two-index anti-symmetric representations of the gauge group coincide. The latter is an orientifold theory that maps into the bosonic sector of $\mathcal{N} = 1$ super Yang-Mills theory in the large number of colours limit. We employ Wilson fermions along with tree-level improvement in the gluonic and fermionic parts of the action. In this setup the Dirac operator can develop real negative eigenvalues. We therefore perform a detailed study in order to identify configurations where the fermion determinant is negative and eventually reweight them. We finally compare results with effective field theory predictions valid in the large $N_C$ limit and find reasonably consistent values despite $N_C$ being only three. Additionally,the spin-one sector provides a novel window for supersymmetric dynamics., Comment: Version accepted and published by PRD (Phys. Rev. D 107, 114506)

The stochastic Laplacian Heaviside (LapH) method has proven to be successful in hadronic calculations. In this work, with charm-light spectroscopy in mind, we set up and optimise the LapH procedure limiting ourselves to the evaluation of two-point mesonic correlation functions. The calculations are performed on CLS ensembles with $N_f=2+1$ Wilson-Clover fermions on a $32^3\times64$ lattice with open boundary conditions. We analyse the interplay between the LapH parameters and the boundary effects, and implement a fitting procedure to isolate excitations coming from the border., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Proceedings contribution to the 39th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 8th-13th August 2022, Bonn, Germany

We use one-flavour QCD ($N_c=3$) as a proxy to understand $\mathcal{N}=1$ SYM. For our simulations, we use tree-level improved Wilson fermions and Symanzik improved gauge action. The hadron spectrum is obtained by using LapH smearing for different masses and simulation volumes. We also report on our efforts to increase the number of colours in our simulations, where we find that the simulations show increasing topological freezing for larger $N_c$., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of the 39th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 8th-13th August 2022, Bonn, Germany

We numerically study QCD with a single quark flavour on the lattice probing predictions from effective field theories that are equivalent to minimal super-symmetric Yang-Mills theory in the large $N_c$ limit. The hadronic spectrum including excited states is analysed using one gauge coupling and several physical volumes and fermion masses. We use the LapH method and also compute disconnected diagrams. Lattice simulations with an odd number of Wilson fermions give rise to regions of configuration space with a negative fermionic weight entailing a sign problem. We perform a detailed analysis on the spectrum of the Wilson-Dirac operator and report on observed cases of a negative fermion determinant in our ensembles., Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures

Infectious diseases are a threat for human health with tremendous impact on our society at large. The recent COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2, is the latest example of a highly infectious disease ravaging the world, since late 2019. It is therefore imperative to develop efficient mathematical models, able to substantially curb the damages of a pandemic by unveiling disease spreading dynamics and symmetries. This will help inform (non)-pharmaceutical prevention strategies. For the reasons above we wrote this report that goes at the heart of mathematical modelling of infectious disease diffusion by simultaneously investigating the underlying microscopic dynamics in terms of percolation models, effective description via compartmental models and the employment of temporal symmetries naturally encoded in the mathematical language of critical phenomena. Our report reviews these approaches and determines their common denominators, relevant for theoretical epidemiology and its link to important concepts in theoretical physics. We show that the different frameworks exhibit common features such as criticality and self-similarity under time rescaling. These features are naturally encoded within the unifying field theoretical approach. The latter leads to an efficient description of the time evolution of the disease via a framework in which (near) time-dilation invariance is explicitly realised. As important test of the relevance of symmetries we show how to mathematically account for observed phenomena such as multi-wave dynamics. The models presented here are of immediate relevance for different realms of scientific enquiry from medical applications to the understanding of human behaviour. Our review offers novel perspectives on how to model, capture, organise and understand epidemiological data and disease dynamics for modelling real-world phenomena., Comment: 57 pages, 40 figures. Article expanded into a review. Prepared for submission to Physics Reports

We discuss an alternate scheme, or a 'line of constant physics', which can be used when computing isospin breaking corrections to hadronic quantities. We show that within a certain class of schemes one can separate the electromagnetic corrections from the strong isospin breaking corrections at leading order, meaning that within this class scheme-ambiguities are higher order effects., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, poster presented at the 36th Annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 22-28 July 2018, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

Within the HMC algorithm, we discuss how, by using the shadow Hamiltonian and the Poisson brackets, one can achieve a simple factorization in the dependence of the Hamiltonian violations upon either the algorithmic parameters or the parameters specifying the integrator. We consider the simplest case of a second order (nested) Omelyan integrator and one level of Hasenbusch splitting of the determinant for the simulations of a QCD-like theory (with gauge group SU(2)). Given the specific choice of the integrator, the Poisson brackets reduce to the variances of the molecular dynamics forces. We show how the factorization can be used to optimize in a very economical and simple way both the algorithmic and the integrator parameters with good accuracy., Comment: Version accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communications. Typos fixed. Formula 2.15 corrected. Discussion at the end of Section 3 rewritten. 19 pages, 8 figures

We compute the leading QED corrections to the hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) of the photon, relevant for the determination of leptonic anomalous magnetic moments, $a_\ell$. We work in the electroquenched approximation and use dynamical QCD configurations generated by the CLS initiative with two degenerate flavors of non-perturbatively O($a$)-improved Wilson fermions. We consider QED$_{\rm L}$ and QED$_{\rm M}$ to deal with the finite-volume zero modes. We compare results for the Wilson loops with exact analytical determinations. In addition we make sure that the volumes and photon masses used in QED$_{\rm M}$ are such that the correct dispersion relation is reproduced by the energy levels extracted from the charged pions two-point functions. Finally we compare results for pion masses and the HVP between QED$_{\rm L}$ and QED$_{\rm M}$. For the vacuum polarization, corrections with respect to the pure QCD case, at fixed pion masses, turn out to be at the percent level., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 2 tabs, talk presented at the 35th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 18-24 June 2017, Granada, Spain

We present a lattice calculation of the nucleon iso-vector axial and induced pseudoscalar form factors on the CLS ensembles using $N_{\rm f}=2$ dynamical flavours of non-perturbatively $\mathcal{O}(a)$-improved Wilson fermions and an $\mathcal{O}(a)$-improved axial current together with the pseudoscalar density. Excited-state effects in the extraction of the form factors are treated using a variety of methods, with a detailed discussion of their respective merits. The chiral and continuum extrapolation of the results is performed both using formulae inspired by Heavy Baryon Chiral Perturbation Theory (HBChPT) and a global approach to the form factors based on a chiral effective theory (EFT) including axial vector mesons. Our results indicate that careful treatment of excited-state effects is important in order to obtain reliable results for the axial form factors of the nucleon, and that the main remaining error stems from the systematic uncertainties of the chiral extrapolation. As final results, we quote $g_{\rm A} = 1.278 \pm 0.068\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{1}{+0.000}{-0.087}$, $\langle r_{\rm A}^2\rangle = 0.360 \pm 0.036\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{1}{+0.080}{-0.088}~\mathrm{fm}^2$, and $g_{\rm P} = 7.7 \pm 1.8 \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{1}{+0.8}{-2.0}$ for the axial charge, axial charge radius and induced pseudoscalar charge, respectively, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic., Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures (23 PDF files); uses revtex4-1.cls; v4: corrections to affiliation addresses, matches published version

We present a practical strategy to optimize a set of Hybrid Monte Carlo parameters in simulations of QCD and QCD-like theories. We specialize to the case of mass-preconditioning, with multiple time-step Omelyan integrators. Starting from properties of the shadow Hamiltonian we show how the optimal setup for the integrator can be chosen once the forces and their variances are measured, assuming that those only depend on the mass-preconditioning parameter., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, talk presented at the 34th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 24-30 July 2016, Southampton, UK

We consider the possibility of using reweighting techniques in order to correct for the breaking of unitarity when twisted boundary conditions are imposed on valence fermions in simulations of lattice gauge theories. We start by studying the properties of reweighting factors and their variances at tree-level. That leads us to the introduction of a factorization for the fermionic reweighting determinant. In the numerical, stochastic, implementation of the method, we find that the effect of reweighting is negligible in the case of large volumes but it is sizeable when the volumes are small and the twisting angles are large. More importantly, we find that for un-improved Wilson fermions, and in small volumes, the dependence of the critical quark mass on the twisting angle is quite pronounced and results in large violations of the continuum dispersion relation., Comment: Version accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communications. Discussion extended in a few points. Results unchanged. 15 pages, 9 figures

We non-perturbatively determine the renormalization factor of the axial vector current in lattice QCD with $N_f=3$ flavors of Wilson-clover fermions and the tree-level Symanzik-improved gauge action. The (by now standard) renormalization condition is derived from the massive axial Ward identity and it is imposed among Schr\"{o}dinger functional states with large overlap on the lowest lying hadronic state in the pseudoscalar channel, in order to reduce kinematically enhanced cutoff effects. We explore a range of couplings relevant for simulations at lattice spacings of $\approx 0.09$ fm and below. An interpolation formula for $Z_A(g_0^2)$, smoothly connecting the non-perturbative values to the 1-loop expression, is provided together with our final results., Comment: 13 pages, 2 tables, 5 figures. Version accepted for publication in PRD. References added, results unchanged. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1502.04999

We present an update of our lattice QCD study of the vacuum polarization function using O$(a)$-improved $N_ {\rm f} =2$ Wilson fermions with increased statistics and a large set of momenta. The resulting points are highly correlated and thus require a correlated fitting procedure. We employ an extended frequentist method to estimate the systematic uncertainties due to the momentum dependence and to the continuum and chiral extrapolations. We present preliminary results of the leading order hadronic contribution of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon $\left(a_\mu^{\mathrm{HLO}}\right)$ at the physical point for $u,d,s$ and $c$ valence quarks., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures in PoS LATTICE2015 (2015) 111

Imposing twisted boundary conditions on the fermionic fields is a procedure extensively used when evaluating, for example, form factors on the lattice. Twisting is usually performed for one flavour and only in the valence, and this causes a breaking of unitarity. In this work we explore the possibility of restoring unitarity through the reweighting method. We first study some properties of the approach at tree level and then we stochastically evaluate ratios of fermionic determinants for different boundary conditions in order to include them in the gauge averages, avoiding in this way the expensive generation of new configurations for each choice of the twisting angle, $\theta$. As expected the effect of reweighting is negligible in the case of large volumes but it is important when the volumes are small and the twisting angles are large. In particular we find a measurable effect for the plaquette and the pion correlation function in the case of $\theta=\pi/2$ in a volume $16\times 8^3$, and we observe a systematic upward shift in the pion dispersion relation., Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, talk presented at the 33rd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 14-18 July 2015, Kobe International Conference Center, Kobe, Japan

We review recent lattice results for quark masses and low-energy hadronic parameters relevant for flavor physics. We do that by describing the FLAG initiative, with emphasis on its scope and rating criteria. The emerging picture is that while for light quantities a large number of computations using different approaches exist, and this increases the overall confidence on the final averages/estimates, in the heavy-light case the field is less advanced and, with the exception of decay constants, only a few computations are available. The precision reached for the light quantities is such that electromagnetic (EM) corrections, beyond the point-like approximation, are becoming relevant. We discuss recent computations of the spectrum based on direct simulations of QED+QCD. We also present theoretical developments for including EM effects in leptonic decays. We conclude describing recent results for the $K \to \pi \pi$ transition amplitudes and prospects for tackling hadronic decays on the lattice., Comment: Invited talk at the 50th Rencontres de Moriond EW 2015. 8 pages, 5 figures

We present a study of the B spectrum performed in the framework of Heavy Quark Effective Theory expanded to next-to-leading order in 1/m and non-perturbative in the strong coupling. Our analyses have been performed on Nf=2 lattice gauge field ensembles corresponding to three different lattice spacings and a wide range of pion masses. We obtain the Bs-meson mass and hyperfine splittings of the B- and Bs-mesons that are in good agreement with the experimental values and examine the mass difference m_{Bs}-m_B as a further cross-check of our previous estimate of the b-quark mass. We also report on the mass splitting between the first excited state and the ground state in the B and Bs systems., Comment: 35 pages, 14 tables, 17 figures; Introduction extended and typos corrected. Version accepted for publication in PRD

We report on a non-perturbative computation of the renormalization factor Z_A of the axial vector current in three-flavour O(a) improved lattice QCD with Wilson quarks and tree-level Symanzik improved gauge action and also recall our recent determination of the improvement coefficient c_A. Our normalization and improvement conditions are formulated at constant physics in a Schr\"odinger functional setup. The normalization condition exploits the full, massive axial Ward identity to reduce finite quark mass effects in the evaluation of Z_A and correlators with boundary wave functions to suppress excited state contributions in the pseudoscalar channel., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures; proceedings of the 32nd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2014), 23-28 June, 2014, Columbia University New York, NY

The coefficient c_A required for O(a) improvement of the axial current in lattice QCD with N_f=3 flavors of Wilson fermions and the tree-level Symanzik-improved gauge action is determined non-perturbatively. The standard improvement condition using Schroedinger functional boundary conditions is employed at constant physics for a range of couplings relevant for simulations at lattice spacings of ~ 0.09 fm and below. We define the improvement condition projected onto the zero topological charge sector of the theory, in order to avoid the problem of possibly insufficient tunneling between topological sectors in our simulations at the smallest bare coupling. An interpolation formula for c_A(g_0^2) is provided together with our final results., Comment: 16 pages including figures and tables, latex2e; version published in Nucl. Phys. B, small additions to the text and references added, results unchanged

We review a lattice strategy how to non-perturbatively determine the coefficients in the HQET expansion of all components of the heavy-light axial and vector currents, including 1/m_h-corrections. We also discuss recent preliminary results on the form factors parameterizing semi-leptonic B-decays at the leading order in 1/m_h., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, Contribution to the Proceedings of the Final Meeting of DFG SFB-TR-9 (Durbach, Germany, Sept. 2014), to appear in Nucl. Phys. (Proc. Suppl.)

We compute the Adler function on the lattice from vacuum polarization data with twisted boundary conditions using numerical derivatives. The study is based on CLS ensembles with two flavours of $O(a)$ improved Wilson fermions. We extrapolate the lattice data for the Adler function to the continuum limit and to the physical pion mass and analyze its dependence on the momentum transfer. We discuss the application of this method to the extraction of the $u,d$ contribution to $a_\mu^{\mathrm{HLO}}$., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, presented at the 32nd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2014), June 23-28 2014, New York, USA

We report on an ongoing non-perturbative determination of the improvement coefficient of the axial current, $c_\mathrm A$, with three flavours of dynamical $\mathrm O(a)$ improved Wilson quarks and tree-level Symanzik improved gauge action. Our computations are based on simulations with the openQCD code. The improvement condition for a range of couplings is formulated with Schr\"odinger functional boundary conditions and imposed along a line of constant physics in parameter space. Our analysis involves correlation functions with boundary wave functions such that a large sensitivity to $c_\mathrm A$ can be reached by exploiting the PCAC relation with two different pseudoscalar states., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, presented at the 31st International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2013), 29 July - 3 August 2013, Mainz, Germany

We present a strategy how to match the full set of components of the heavy-light axial and vector currents in Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET), up to and including 1/m-corrections, to QCD. While the ultimate goal is to apply these matching conditions non-perturbatively, in this study we first have implemented them at tree-level, in order to find good choices of the matching observables with small O(1/m^2) contributions. They can later be employed in the non-perturbative matching procedure which is a crucial part of precision HQET computations of semileptonic decay form factors in lattice QCD., Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures, 2 appendices. Matches version to be published in JHEP. One equation and one figure corrected, a few typos fixed. Results unchanged

We use a lattice determination of the hadronic vacuum polarization tensor to study the associated Ward identities and compute the Adler function. The vacuum polarization tensor is computed from a combination of point-split and local vector currents, using two flavours of O($a$)-improved Wilson fermions. Partially twisted boundary conditions are employed to obtain a fine momentum resolution. The modifications of the Ward identities by lattice artifacts and by the use of twisted boundary conditions are monitored. We determine the Adler function from the derivative of the vacuum polarization function over a large region of momentum transfer $q^2$. As a first account of systematic effects, a continuum limit scaling analysis is performed in the large $q^2$ regime., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, presented at the 31st International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2013), 29 July - 3 August 2013, Mainz, Germany

We review lattice results related to pion, kaon, D- and B-meson physics with the aim of making them easily accessible to the particle physics community. More specifically, we report on the determination of the light-quark masses, the form factor f+(0), arising in semileptonic K -> pi transition at zero momentum transfer, as well as the decay constant ratio fK/fpi of decay constants and its consequences for the CKM matrix elements Vus and Vud. Furthermore, we describe the results obtained on the lattice for some of the low-energy constants of SU(2)LxSU(2)R and SU(3)LxSU(3)R Chiral Perturbation Theory and review the determination of the BK parameter of neutral kaon mixing. The inclusion of heavy-quark quantities significantly expands the FLAG scope with respect to the previous review. Therefore, for this review, we focus on D- and B-meson decay constants, form factors, and mixing parameters, since these are most relevant for the determination of CKM matrix elements and the global CKM unitarity-triangle fit. In addition we review the status of lattice determinations of the strong coupling constant alpha_s., Comment: Several errors of transcription in the entries of Table 1 have been corrected. The entries of Table 1 now agree with the final results quoted in the main text. 324 pages, 26 figures, 118 tables, 697 references

We consider a non-perturbative formulation of an SU(2) massive gauge theory on a space-time lattice, which is also a discretised gauged non-linear chiral model. The lattice model is shown to have an exactly conserved global SU(2) symmetry. If a scaling region for the lattice model exists and the lightest degrees of freedom are spin one vector particles with the same quantum numbers as the conserved current, we argue that the most general effective theory describing their low-energy dynamics must be a massive gauge theory. We present results of a exploratory numerical simulation of the model and find indications for the presence of a scaling region where both a triplet vector and a scalar remain light., Comment: 1+22 pages, 8 figures, 1 table and 1 appendix. Few typos corrected and references added. Conclusions unchanged. Version accepted for publication in JHEP

We present updated preliminary results for the nucleon electromagnetic form factors for non-perturbatively $\mathcal{O}(a)$ improved Wilson fermions in $N_f=2$ QCD measured on the CLS ensembles. The use of the summed operator insertion method allows us to suppress the influence of excited states in our measurements. A study of the effect that excited state contaminations have on the $Q^2$ dependence of the extracted nucleon form factors may then be made through comparisons of the summation method to standard plateau fits, as well as to excited state fits., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, talk presented at the 30th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2012), Cairns, Australia, June 24-29, 2012

We demonstrate that a reduction in the noise-to-signal ratio may be obtained for hadrons at non-zero momenta whilst maintaining a good overlap with the ground state through a generalisation of Gaussian/Wuppertal smearing. The use of an anisotropic smearing wavefunction is motivated by the physical picture of a boosted hadron., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, poster presented at the 30th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2012), Cairns, Australia, June 24-29, 2012

We report on our ongoing project to calculate the leading hadronic contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon a_mu^HLO using two dynamical flavours of non-perturbatively O(a) improved Wilson fermions. In this study, we changed the vacuum polarisation tensor to a combination of local and point-split currents which significantly reduces the numerical effort. Partially twisted boundary conditions allow us to improve the momentum resolution of the vacuum polarisation tensor and therefore the determination of the leading hadronic contribution to (g-2)_mu. We also extended the range of ensembles to include a pion mass below 200 MeV which allows us to check the non-trivial chiral behaviour of a_mu^HLO., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, talk presented at the 30th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice2012), Cairns, Australia

We report on the ALPHA Collaboration's lattice B-physics programme based on N_f=2 O(a) improved Wilson fermions and HQET, including all NLO effects in the inverse heavy quark mass, as well as non-perturbative renormalization and matching, to fix the parameters of the effective theory. Our simulations in large physical volume cover 3 lattice spacings a ~ (0.08-0.05) fm and pion masses down to 190 MeV to control continuum and chiral extrapolations. We present the status of results for the b-quark mass and the B_(s)-meson decay constants, f_B and f_{B_s}., Comment: Presented at the 16th International Conference in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD 2012), 2-7 July 2012, Montpellier, France; 7 pages including figures, latex2e, uses elsarticle.cls

We generalize Gaussian/Wuppertal smearing in order to produce non-spherical wave functions. We show that we can achieve a reduction in the noise-to-signal ratio for correlation functions of certain hadrons at non-zero momentum, while at the same time preserving a good projection on the ground state., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. Version accepted for publication in EPJ A

We report on a non-perturbative determination of the parameters of the lattice Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET) Lagrangian and of the time component of the heavy-light axial-vector current with Nf=2 flavors of massless dynamical quarks. The effective theory is considered at the 1/mh order, and the heavy mass mh covers a range from slightly above the charm to beyond the beauty region. These HQET parameters are needed to compute, for example, the b-quark mass, the heavy-light spectrum and decay constants in the static approximation and to order 1/mh in HQET. The determination of the parameters is done non-perturbatively. The computation reported in this paper uses the plaquette gauge action and two different static actions for the heavy quark described by HQET. For the light-quark action we choose non-perturbatively O(a)-improved Wilson fermions., Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables

We present an updated analysis of the non-perturbatively renormalized b-quark mass and B meson decay constant based on CLS lattices with two dynamical non-perturbatively improved Wilson quarks. This update incorporates additional light quark masses and lattice spacings in large physical volume to improve chiral extrapolations and to reach the continuum limit. We use Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET) including 1/m_b terms with non-perturbative coefficients based on the matching of QCD and HQET developed by the ALPHA collaboration during the past years., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Proceedings of the XXIX International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory - Lattice 2011, July 10-16, 2011, Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe, California

We report on our computation of the leading hadronic contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon using two dynamical flavours of non-perturbatively O(a) improved Wilson fermions. The strange quark is introduced in the quenched approximation. Partially twisted boundary conditions are applied to improve the momentum resolution in the relevant integral. Our results, obtained at three different values of the lattice spacing, allow for a preliminary study of discretization effects. We explore a wide range of lattice volumes, namely 2 fm < L < 3 fm, with pion masses from 600 to 280 MeV and discuss different chiral extrapolations to the physical point. We observe a non-trivial dependence of a_mu(HLO) on m_pi especially for small pion masses. The final result, a_mu(HLO)=618(64)*10^(-10), is obtained by considering only the quark connected contribution to the vacuum polarization. We present a detailed analysis of systematic errors and discuss how they can be reduced in future simulations., Comment: Version accepted for publication in JHEP. Discussions extended in sections 3.1 and 3.2, results unchanged. 19 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables

We compute the leading hadronic contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon a_mu^HLO using two dynamical flavours of non-perturbatively O(a) improved Wilson fermions. By applying partially twisted boundary conditions we are able to improve the momentum resolution of the vacuum polarisation, an important ingredient for the determination of the leading hadronic contribution. We check systematic uncertainties by studying several ensembles, which allows us to discuss finite size effects and lattice artefacts. The chiral behavior of a_mu^HLO turns out to be non-trivial, especially for small pion masses., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, contribution to LATTICE 2011

We present the first results of an ongoing effort to determine the lattice scale on the N_f=2 CLS lattice ensembles via the mass of the \Omega\ baryon. Results from different methods are compared, and various sources of systematic uncertainty are discussed., Comment: 7 pages, 4 pdf figures; talk given at LATTICE 2011, XXIX International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 11-16 2011, Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe, California

By generalizing our previous work on the parity symmetry, the partition function of a Yang-Mills theory is decomposed into a sum of path integrals each giving the contribution from multiplets of states with fixed quantum numbers associated to parity, charge conjugation, translations, rotations and central conjugations. Ratios of path integrals and correlation functions can then be computed with a multi-level Monte Carlo integration scheme whose numerical cost, at a fixed statistical precision and at asymptotically large times, increases power-like with the time extent of the lattice. The strategy is implemented for the SU(3) Yang-Mills theory, and a full-fledged computation of the mass and multiplicity of the lightest glueball with vacuum quantum numbers is carried out at two values of the lattice spacing (0.17 and 0.12 fm)., Comment: Poster contribution to Lattice 2011. 7 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures

We briefly review the computational strategy we have recently introduced for computing glueball masses and matrix elements, which achieves an exponential reduction of statistical errors compared to standard techniques. The global symmetries of the theory play a crucial role in the approach. We show how our previous work on parity can be generalized to other symmetries. In particular we discuss how to extract the mass of the 0++, 2++ and 0-+ lightest glueballs avoiding the exponential degradation of the signal to noise ratio. We present new numerical results and update the published ones., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Contribution at the XXVIII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, Lattice2010, June 14-19, 2010, Villasimius, Italy

We make use of the global symmetries of the Yang-Mills theory on the lattice to design a new computational strategy for extracting glueball masses and matrix elements which achieves an exponential reduction of the statistical error with respect to standard techniques. By generalizing our previous work on the parity symmetry, the partition function of the theory is decomposed into a sum of path integrals each giving the contribution from multiplets of states with fixed quantum numbers associated to parity, charge conjugation, translations, rotations and central conjugations Z_N^3. Ratios of path integrals and correlation functions can then be computed with a multi-level Monte Carlo integration scheme whose numerical cost, at a fixed statistical precision and at asymptotically large times, increases power-like with the time extent of the lattice. The strategy is implemented for the SU(3) Yang--Mills theory, and a full-fledged computation of the mass and multiplicity of the lightest glueball with vacuum quantum numbers is carried out at a lattice spacing of 0.17 fm., Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures

We report on the status of an ALPHA Collaboration project to extract quantities for B physics phenomenology from Nf=2 lattice simulations. The framework is Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET) expanded up to the first order of the inverse b-quark mass. The couplings of the effective theory are determined by imposing matching conditions of observables computed in HQET with their counterpart computed in QCD. That program, based on Nf=2 simulations in a small physical volume with SF boundary conditions, is now almost finished. On the other side the analysis of configurations selected from the CLS ensembles, in order to measure HQET hadronic matrix elements, has just started recently so that only results obtained at a single lattice spacing, a=0.07 fm, will be discussed. We give our first results for the b-quark mass and for the B meson decay constant., Comment: 14 pages 9 figures, for the proceedings of the XXVIII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, Lattice2010, June 14-19, 2010, Villasimius, Sardinia, Italy. v2 remove obsolete plots

We discuss some recent lattice results on a few selected hadronic quantities relevant for heavy flavour phenomenology and present some recent theoretical developments. We put the emphasis on the challenges, which have to be faced, on the way to precise heavy flavour physics from the lattice. We also discuss the importance in the search for New Physics of possible future lattice studies of the form factors entering B --> K and B --> K* semileptonic decays., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Invited talk at ICHEP 2010, July 22 - 28, 2010, Paris

After discussing the relevance of a first principles theory-prediction of the hadronic vacuum polarisation for Standard Model tests, the theoretical challenges for its computation in lattice QCD are reviewed. New ideas that will potentially improve the quality of lattice simulations will be introduced and the status of ongoing simulations will be presented briefly., Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, talk at "Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum IX", Madrid, Spain, Aug. 30-Sep. 3, 2010; submitted to AIP Conference Proceedings

Form factors of the nucleon have been extracted from experiment with high precision. However, lattice calculations have failed so far to reproduce the observed dependence of form factors on the momentum transfer. We have embarked on a program to thoroughly investigate systematic effects in lattice calculation of the required three-point correlation functions. Here we focus on the possible contamination from higher excited states and present a method which is designed to suppress them. Its effectiveness is tested for several baryonic matrix elements, different lattice sizes and pion masses., Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures

We show how quark-disconnected and quark-connected contributions to hadronic n-point functions can be written as independent correlators for which one can derive expressions in partially quenched chiral effective theory. As an example we apply the idea to the case of the hadronic vacuum polarisation. In particular, we consider the cases of the Nf = 2 theory without and with a partially quenched strange quark and also the Nf = 2 + 1 theory. In the latter two cases a parameter-free prediction for the disconnected contribution at NLO in the effective theory is given. Finally we show how twisted boundary conditions can then be used in lattice QCD to improve the q^2 resolution in the connected contributions even when flavour singlet operators are considered., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures; results unchanged; typos corrected, references added and discussion extended; accepted for publication in JHEP

We report on the computation of the $B_s$ meson decay constant in Heavy Quark Effective Theory on the lattice. The next to leading order corrections in the HQET expansion are included non-perturbatively. We estimate higher order contributions to be very small. The results are extrapolated to the continuum limit, the main systematic error affecting the computation is therefore the quenched approximation used here. The Generalized Eigenvalue Problem and the use of all-to-all propagators are important technical ingredients of our approach that allow to keep statistical and systematic errors under control. We also report on the decay constant $f_{B'_s}$ of the first radially excited state in the $B_s$ sector, computed in the static limit., Comment: (1+17) pages, 4 figures (7 pdf files); corrected eqn. (3.4), clarified discussion of RGI matrix element

Using Heavy Quark Effective Theory with non-perturbatively determined parameters in a quenched lattice calculation, we evaluate the splittings between the ground state and the first two radially excited states of the $B_s$ system at static order. We also determine the splitting between first excited and ground state, and between the $B_s^*$ and $B_s$ ground states to order $1/m_b$. The Generalized Eigenvalue Problem and the use of all-to-all propagators are important ingredients of our approach., Comment: (1+18) pages, 3 figures (4 pdf files); pdflatex; v2: corrections to table 1, results unaffected

We convey an idea of the significant recent progress, which opens up good perspectives for high-precision ab-initio computations in heavy flavour physics based on lattice QCD. Rather than surveying the latest results, this contribution focuses on the concept and the challenges of fully non-perturbative computations in the B-meson sector, where the b-quark is treated within an effective theory. We outline its use to determine the b-quark mass and report on the results obtained in the quenched approximation and on the status in the two dynamical flavour theory., Comment: Contribution to the NIC-Symposium 2010, 24-25 February 2010, Juelich, Germany; 8 pages including figures, latex2e, uses nic-series.cls

We determine non-perturbatively the parameters of the lattice HQET Lagrangian and those of the time component of the heavy-light axial-vector current in the quenched approximation. The HQET expansion includes terms of order 1/m. Our results allow to compute, for example, the heavy-light spectrum and B-meson decay constants in the static approximation and to order 1/m in HQET. The determination of the parameters is separated into universal and non-universal parts. The universal results can be used to determine the parameters for various discretizations. The computation reported in this paper uses the plaquette gauge action and the "HYP1/2" action for the b-quark described by HQET. The parameters of the current also depend on the light-quark action, for which we choose non-perturbatively O(a)-improved Wilson fermions., Comment: 31 pages (19 pages + technical appendices) pdflatex. Discussion of vector current removed. Replaced by the published version, references added

We carry out a thorough analysis with the GEVP method to obtain ground-state and first-excited-state masses and decay constants of bottom-strange (pseudo-scalar and vector) mesons. This computation is done for quenched, nonperturbatively renormalized HQET, including order $1/m_b$ terms. The continuum limit is obtained using three lattice spacings and two static actions., Comment: 7 pages, presented at Lattice 2009