Search

Isospin-breaking corrections to the hadron vacuum polarization component of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon are needed to ensure the theoretical precision of $g_\mu -2$ is below the experimental precision. We describe the status of our work calculating, using lattice QCD, the QED correction to the light and strange connected hadronic vacuum polarization in a Dashen scheme. We report results using physical $N_f=2+1+1$ HISQ ensembles at three lattice spacings and three heavier-than-light valence quark masses., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Proceedings of Science, contribution to the 39th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, LATTICE2022, Bonn, Germany

The decay rate of a metastable vacuum is usually calculated using a semiclassical approximation to the Euclidean path integral. The extension to a complete Euclidean lattice Monte Carlo computation, however, is hampered by analytic continuations that are ill-suited to numerical treatment, and the nonequilibrium nature of a metastable state. In this paper we develop a new methodology to compute vacuum decay rates from Monte Carlo simulations of Euclidean lattice theories. To test the new method, we consider simple quantum mechanical systems systems with metastable vacua. This work can be extended to Euclidean field theories, which we discuss in the Conclusions., 33 pages, 10 figures

We give an update on the status of the Fermilab Lattice-HPQCD-MILC calculation of the contribution to the muon's anomolous magnetic moment from the light-quark, connected hadronic vacuum polarization. We present preliminary, blinded results in the intermediate window for this contribution, $a_{\mu, \textrm{W}}^{ll}$. The calculation is performed on $N_f =2+1+1$ highly-improved staggered quark (HISQ) ensembles from the MILC collaboration with physical pion mass at four lattice spacings between 0.15 fm and 0.06 fm. We also present preliminary results for a study of the two-pion contributions to the vector-current correlation function performed on the 0.15 fm ensemble where we see a factor of four improvement over traditional noise reduction techniques., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, contribution to the 38th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (LATTICE2021)

We are very grateful to the Fermilab Directorate and the Fermilab Theoretical Physics Department for their financial and logistical support of the first workshop of the Muon g -2 Theory Initiative (held near Fermilab in June 2017) [123], which was crucial for its success, and indeed for the successful start of the Initiative. Financial support for this workshop was also provided by the Fermilab Distinguished Scholars program, the Universities Research Association through a URA Visiting Scholar award, the Riken Brookhaven Research Center, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under Grant No. KAKEHNHI-17H02906. We thank Shoji Hashimoto, Toru Iijima, Takashi Kaneko, and Shohei Nishida for hosting the HVP workshop at KEK [124] and the KEK Theory Center and the U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Cooperation Program in High Energy Physics for providing logistical and financial support. The HLbL workshop at the University of Connecticut [125] was hosted by the University of Connecticut Physics Department. We also gratefully acknowledge support for the second plenary workshop in Mainz [126] from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via the Cluster of Excellence "Precision Physics, Fundamental Interactions and Structure of Matter'' (PRISMA), the Collaborative Research Centre "The low-energy frontier of the Standard Model'' (SFB 1044), as well as the Helmholtz Institute Mainz. And finally, we thank the Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington for hosting the third plenary workshop [127] and for its kind hospitality and stimulating research environment. This workshop was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, under Award Nos. DE-FG02-00ER41132, DE-SC0020106, and by the U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Cooperation Program in High Energy Physics. This review benefited from discussions with O. Cata, N. Christ, L.Y. Dai, H. Davoudiasl, S. Fayer, S. Ganguly, A. Gasparian, S. Hashimoto, T. Iijima, K. Kampf, D. Kawall, I. Larin, Z. Pagel, M. Petschlies, A. Rebhan, K. Schilcher, K. Shimomura, E. Shintani, D. Steffen, S. Tracz, C. Tu, and T. Yamazaki. The work in this paper was supported by CNRS, by Conacyt (Ciencia Basica 2015) under Grant No. 250628, by CONACyT-Mexico under Grant No. CB2014-22117, by Coordinacion de la Investigacion Cientifica (CIC-UMSNH) under Grant No. 4.10, by Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond under Grant No. 8021-00122B, by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Collaborative Research Centers CRC 1044, CRC 1044 -204404729, CRC 110, and under Grant No. HI 2048/1-1, Prisma Cluster for Excellence PRISMA+ EXC2118/1, STO/876/6-1, by European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement Nos. 668679, 757646, 771971-SIMDAMA, 813942, by the European Union H2020-MSCA-COFUND2016 under Grant No. 754510, by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 843134, by European Union EuroPLEx Grant H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018-813942, by European Union STRONG 2020 project under Grant Agreement No. 824093, by the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University -A*MIDEX, a French "Investissements d'Avenir" program, through the Chaire d'Excellence program and the OCEVU Laboratoire d'Excellence (ANR-11-LABX-0060), by the Fermilab Distinguished Scholars program, by Fondo SEP-Cinvestav under Grant No. 142, Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia under Grant No. SFRH/BPD/109443/2015, by Generalitat de Catalunya under Grant No. 2017SGR1069, by the Helmholtz Association (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research), by the Helmholtz-Institut Mainz, by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), by the Isaac Newton Trust, by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under Grant Nos. KAKENHI-15H05742, 16K05317, 16K05323, 16K05338, 17H01133, 17H02906, 18H05226, 19K21872, 20K03926, 20K03960, by Junta de Andalucia under Grant No. A-FQM-467-UGR18, by KEK, by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under Grant No. CICYTFEDER-FPA2017-86989-P, by Ministerio de Industria, Economia y Competitividad under Grant Nos. FPA2016-78220-C3-3-P, FPA2017-86989-P, PGC2018-094857-B-I00, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, by Laboratoires d'Excellence FIRST-TF grants, a French "Investissements d'Avenir'' program, by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation under Grant Agreement No. 14.W03.31.0026, by the National Research Foundation of South Africa, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) Investigator Grant IF/00898/2015, by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research under Grant No. PN19060101, by the Russian Science Foundation under Grant No. RSF 18-12-00128, by the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya under Grant No. 2017 SGR 1069, by the Swedish Research Council under Grant Nos. 2016-05996, 2019-03779, by the Swiss National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. PP00P2_176884, PCEFP2_181117, by The Leverhulme Trust under Grant No. ECF-2019-223, by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) under Grant Nos. ST/N504130/1, ST/P000290/1, ST/P00055X/1, ST/P000630/1, ST/P000711/1, ST/P000746/1, ST/S000879/1, ST/S000925/1, by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics under Award Nos. DE-SC0009919, DE-SC0009998, DE-SC0010005, DE-SC0010120, DE-SC0010339, DE-SC0012391, DE-SC0012704, DE-SC0013682, DE-SC0013895, DE-SC0015655, by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under Award Nos. DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-FG02-00ER41132, DE-FG02-97ER41020, by the U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Cooperation Program in High Energy Physics, "Incubation Platform for Intensity Frontier", by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. NSF-PHY-1316222, PHY14-14614, PHY17-19626, and PHY19-23131, and by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Precision Measurement Grant Program under Award No. 60NANB16D271. This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics., We review the present status of the Standard Model calculation of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. This is performed in a perturbative expansion in the fine-structure constant and is broken down into pure QED, electroweak, and hadronic contributions. The pure QED contribution is by far the largest and has been evaluated up to and including with negligible numerical uncertainty. The electroweak contribution is suppressed by and only shows up at the level of the seventh significant digit. It has been evaluated up to two loops and is known to better than one percent. Hadronic contributions are the most difficult to calculate and are responsible for almost all of the theoretical uncertainty. The leading hadronic contribution appears at and is due to hadronic vacuum polarization, whereas at the hadronic light-by-light scattering contribution appears. Given the low characteristic scale of this observable, these contributions have to be calculated with nonperturbative methods, in particular, dispersion relations and the lattice approach to QCD. The largest part of this review is dedicated to a detailed account of recent efforts to improve the calculation of these two contributions with either a data-driven, dispersive approach, or a first-principle, lattice-QCD approach. The final result reads and is smaller than the Brookhaven measurement by 3.7. The experimental uncertainty will soon be reduced by up to a factor four by the new experiment currently running at Fermilab, and also by the future J-PARC experiment. This and the prospects to further reduce the theoretical uncertainty in the near future – which are also discussed here – make this quantity one of the most promising places to look for evidence of new physics., Fermilab Directorate, Fermilab Theoretical Physics Department, Fermilab Distinguished Scholars program, Universities Research Association through a URA Visiting Scholar award, Riken Brookhaven Research Center, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKEHNHI-17H02906 KAKENHI-15H05742 16K05317 16K05323 16K05338 17H01133 17H02906 18H05226 19K21872 20K03926 20K03960, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Cooperation Program in High Energy Physics, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via the Cluster of Excellence "Precision Physics, Fundamental Interactions and Structure of Matter'' (PRISMA), Collaborative Research Centre "The low-energy frontier of the Standard Model'' SFB 1044, Helmholtz Institute Mainz, United States Department of Energy (DOE) DE-FG02-00ER41132 DE-SC0020106, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Conacyt (Ciencia Basica 2015) 250628, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACyT) CB2014-22117, Coordinacion de la Investigacion Cientifica (CIC-UMSNH) 4.10, Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond 8021-00122B, German Research Foundation (DFG) CRC 1044 CRC 1044 -204404729 CRC 110 HI 2048/1-1, Prisma Cluster for Excellence PRISMA+ EXC2118/1 STO/876/6-1, European Research Council (ERC) 668679 757646 771971-SIMDAMA 813942, European Union (EU) 754510, European Union (EU) 843134, European Union EuroPLEx Grant H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018-813942, European Union STRONG 2020 project 824093, French National Research Agency (ANR), OCEVU Laboratoire d'Excellence ANR-11-LABX-0060, Fondo SEP-Cinvestav 142, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology SFRH/BPD/109443/2015, Generalitat de Catalunya 2017SGR1069, Helmholtz Association (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Isaac Newton Trust, Junta de Andalucia A-FQM-467-UGR18, Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government CICYTFEDER-FPA2017-86989-P, Ministerio de Industria, Economia y Competitividad FPA2016-78220-C3-3-P FPA2017-86989-P PGC2018-094857-B-I00 SEV-2016-0588 SEV-2016-0597, Laboratoires d'Excellence FIRST-TF grants, Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation 14.W03.31.0026, National Research Foundation - South Africa, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) CGIAR, Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) Investigator Grant IF/00898/2015, Romanian Ministry of Education and Research PN19060101, Russian Science Foundation (RSF) RSF 18-12-00128, Generalitat de Catalunya 2017 SGR 1069, Swedish Research Council 2016-05996 2019-03779, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) PP00P2_176884 PCEFP2_181117, Leverhulme Trust ECF-2019-223, UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ST/N504130/1 ST/P000290/1 ST/P00055X/1 ST/P000630/1 ST/P000711/1 ST/P000746/1 ST/S000879/1 ST/S000925/1, United States Department of Energy (DOE) DE-SC0009919 DE-SC0009998 DE-SC0010005 DE-SC0010120 DE-SC0010339 DE-SC0012391 DE-SC0012704 DE-SC0013682 DE-SC0013895 DE-SC0015655, United States Department of Energy (DOE) DE-FG02-00ER41132 DE-AC02-05CH11231 DE-FG02-97ER41020 DE-AC02-07CH11359, U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Cooperation Program in High Energy Physics, "Incubation Platform for Intensity Frontier", National Science Foundation (NSF) NSF-PHY-1316222 PHY14-14614 PHY17-19626 PHY19-23131, U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Precision Measurement Grant 60NANB16D271

A topological $\theta$-term in gauge theories, including quantum chromodynamics in 3+1 dimensions, gives rise to a sign problem that makes classical Monte Carlo simulations impractical. Quantum simulations are not subject to such sign problems and are a promising approach to studying these theories in the future. In the near term, it is interesting to study simpler models that retain some of the physical phenomena of interest and their implementation on quantum hardware. For example, dimensionally-reducing gauge theories on small spatial tori produces quantum mechanical models which, despite being relatively simple to solve, retain interesting vacuum and symmetry structures from the parent gauge theories. Here we consider quantum mechanical particle-on-a-circle models, related by dimensional reduction to the 1+1d Schwinger model, that possess a $\theta$-term and realize an 't Hooft anomaly or global inconsistency at $\theta = \pi$. These models also exhibit the related phenomena of spontaneous symmetry breaking and instanton-anti-instanton interference in real time. We propose an experimental scheme for the real-time simulation of a particle on a circle with a $\theta$-term and a $\mathbb{Z}_n$ potential using a synthetic dimension encoded in a Rydberg atom. Simulating the Rydberg atom with realistic experimental parameters, we demonstrate that the essential physics can be well-captured by the experiment, with expected behavior in the tunneling rate as a function of $\theta$. Similar phenomena and observables can also arise in more complex quantum mechanical models connected to higher-dimensional nonabelian gauge theories by dimensional reduction., Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures; minor changes and refs added, version accepted for publication in PRD

Two of the elements of the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa quark mixing matrix, $$|V_{ub}|$$ | V ub | and $$|V_{cb}|$$ | V cb | , are extracted from semileptonic B decays. The results of the B factories, analysed in the light of the most recent theoretical calculations, remain puzzling, because for both $$|V_{ub}|$$ | V ub | and $$|V_{cb}|$$ | V cb | the exclusive and inclusive determinations are in clear tension. Further, measurements in the $$\tau $$ τ channels at Belle, Babar, and LHCb show discrepancies with the Standard Model predictions, pointing to a possible violation of lepton flavor universality. LHCb and Belle II have the potential to resolve these issues in the next few years. This article summarizes the discussions and results obtained at the MITP workshop held on April 9–13, 2018, in Mainz, Germany, with the goal to develop a medium-term strategy of analyses and calculations aimed at solving the puzzles. Lattice and continuum theorists working together with experimentalists have discussed how to reshape the semileptonic analyses in view of the much higher luminosity expected at Belle II, searching for ways to systematically validate the theoretical predictions in both exclusive and inclusive B decays, and to exploit the rich possibilities at LHCb.

We calculate the contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment hadronic vacuum polarization from {the} connected diagrams of up and down quarks, omitting electromagnetism. We employ QCD gauge-field configurations with dynamical $u$, $d$, $s$, and $c$ quarks and the physical pion mass, and analyze five ensembles with lattice spacings ranging from $a \approx 0.06$ to~0.15~fm. The up- and down-quark masses in our simulations have equal masses $m_l$. We obtain, in this world where all pions have the mass of the $\pi^0$, $10^{10} a_\mu^{ll}({\rm conn.}) = 637.8\,(8.8)$, in agreement with independent lattice-QCD calculations. We then combine this value with published lattice-QCD results for the connected contributions from strange, charm, and bottom quarks, and an estimate of the uncertainty due to the fact that our calculation does not include strong-isospin breaking, electromagnetism, or contributions from quark-disconnected diagrams. Our final result for the total $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^2)$ hadronic vacuum polarization to the muon's anomalous magnetic moment is~$10^{10}a_\mu^{\rm HVP,LO} = 699(15)_{u,d}(1)_{s,c,b}$, where the errors are from the light-quark and heavy-quark contributions, respectively. Our result agrees with both {\it ab-initio} lattice-QCD calculations and phenomenological determinations from experimental $e^+e^-$-scattering data. It is $1.3\sigma$ below the "no new physics" value of the hadronic-vacuum-polarization contribution inferred from combining the BNL E821 measurement of $a_\mu$ with theoretical calculations of the other contributions., Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables; updated to correct a small mistake in the finite volume correction resulting in small changes to the results, matches published version

We report updates to an ongoing lattice-QCD calculation of the form factors for the semileptonic decays $B \to \pi \ell \nu$, $B_s \to K \ell \nu$, $B \to \pi \ell^+ \ell^-$, and $B \to K \ell^+ \ell^-$. The tree-level decays $B_{(s)} \to \pi (K) \ell \nu$ enable precise determinations of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$, while the flavor-changing neutral-current interactions $B \to \pi (K) \ell^+ \ell^-$ are sensitive to contributions from new physics. This work uses MILC's (2+1+1)-flavor HISQ ensembles at approximate lattice spacings between $0.057$ and $0.15$ fm, with physical sea-quark masses on four out of the seven ensembles. The valence sector is comprised of a clover $b$ quark (in the Fermilab interpretation) and HISQ light and $s$ quarks. We present preliminary results for the form factors $f_0$, $f_+$, and $f_T$, including studies of systematic errors.

We present an update on the ongoing calculations by the Fermilab Lattice, HPQCD, and MILC Collaboration of the leading-order (in electromagnetism) hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. Our project employs ensembles with four flavors of highly improved staggered fermions, physical light-quark masses, and four lattice spacings ranging from $a \approx 0.06$ to 0.15 fm for most of the results thus far.

We study the promising idea of using dipolar molecular systems as analog quantum simulators for quantum link models, which are discrete versions of lattice gauge theories. In a quantum link model the link variables have a finite number of degrees of freedom and discrete values. We construct the effective Hamiltonian of a system of dipolar molecules with electric dipole-dipole interactions, where we use the tunable parameters of the system to match it to the target Hamiltonian describing a U(1) quantum link model in 1+1 dimensions., Comment: Proceedings of the 37th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory - Lattice 2019, Wuhan (China)

Using highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) ${N}_{f}=2+1+1$ MILC ensembles with five different values of the lattice spacing, including four ensembles with physical quark masses, we perform the most precise computation to date of the $K\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{\ell}\ensuremath{\nu}$ vector form factor at zero momentum transfer, ${f}_{+}^{{K}^{0}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}}(0)=0.9696(15{)}_{\mathrm{stat}}(12{)}_{\mathrm{syst}}$. This is the first calculation that includes the dominant finite-volume effects, as calculated in chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order. Our result for the form factor provides a direct determination of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element $|{V}_{us}|=0.22333(44{)}_{{f}_{+}(0)}(42{)}_{\mathrm{exp}}$, with a theory error that is, for the first time, at the same level as the experimental error. The uncertainty of the semileptonic determination is now similar to that from leptonic decays and the ratio ${f}_{{K}^{+}}/{f}_{{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}}$, which uses $|{V}_{ud}|$ as input. Our value of $|{V}_{us}|$ is in tension at the $2--2.6\ensuremath{\sigma}$ level both with the determinations from leptonic decays and with the unitarity of the CKM matrix. In the test of CKM unitarity in the first row, the current limiting factor is the error in $|{V}_{ud}|$, although a recent determination of the nucleus-independent radiative corrections to superallowed nuclear $\ensuremath{\beta}$ decays could reduce the $|{V}_{ud}{|}^{2}$ uncertainty nearly to that of $|{V}_{us}{|}^{2}$. Alternative unitarity tests using only kaon decays, for which improvements in the theory and experimental inputs are likely in the next few years, reveal similar tensions and could be further improved by taking correlations between the theory inputs. As part of our analysis, we calculated the correction to ${f}_{+}^{K\ensuremath{\pi}}(0)$ due to nonequilibrated topological charge at leading order in chiral perturbation theory, for both the full-QCD and the partially quenched cases. We also obtain the combination of low-energy constants in the chiral effective Lagrangian $[{C}_{12}^{r}+{C}_{34}^{r}\ensuremath{-}({L}_{5}^{r}{)}^{2}]({M}_{\ensuremath{\rho}})=(2.92\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.31)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}$.

We describe a computation of the contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon from the disconnected part of the hadronic vacuum polarization. We use the highly-improved staggered quark (HISQ) formulation for the current density with gauge configurations generated with four flavors of HISQ sea quarks. The computation is performed by stochastic estimation of the current density using the truncated solver method combined with deflation of low-modes. The parameters are tuned to minimize the computational cost for a given target uncertainty in the current-current correlation function. The calculation presented here is carried out on a single gauge-field ensemble of size $32^3\times48$ with an approximate lattice spacing of $\sim0.15$ fm and with physical sea-quark masses. We describe the methodology and the analysis procedure, Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, The 36th Annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory - LATTICE2018

We discuss preliminary results for the vector form factors $f_+^{\{\pi,K\}}$ at zero-momentum transfer for the decays $D\to\pi\ell\nu$ and $D\to K \ell\nu$ using MILC's $N_f = 2+1+1$ HISQ ensembles at four lattice spacings, $a \approx 0.042, 0.06, 0.09$, and 0.12 fm, and various HISQ quark masses down to the (degenerate) physical light quark mass. We use the kinematic constraint $f_+(q^2)= f_0(q^2)$ at $q^2 = 0$ to determine the vector form factor from our study of the scalar current, which yields $f_0(0)$. Results are extrapolated to the continuum physical point in the framework of hard pion/kaon SU(3) heavy-meson-staggered $\chi$PT and Symanzik effective theory. Our calculation improves upon the precision achieved in existing lattice-QCD calculations of the vector form factors at $q^2=0$. We show the values of the CKM matrix elements $|V_{cs}|$ and $|V_{cd}|$ that we would obtain using our preliminary results for the form factors together with recent experimental results, and discuss the implications of these values for the second row CKM unitarity.

We present preliminary blinded results from our analysis of the form factors for $B\to D^\ast\ell\nu$ decay at non-zero recoil. Our analysis includes 15 MILC asqtad ensembles with $N_f=2+1$ flavors of sea quarks and lattice spacings ranging from $a\approx 0.15$ fm down to $0.045$ fm. The valence light quarks employ the asqtad action, whereas the $b$ and $c$ quarks are treated using the Fermilab action. We discuss the impact that our results will have on $\left|V_{cb}\right|$ and $R(D\ast)$.

This document is one of a series of whitepapers from the USQCD collaboration. Here, we discuss opportunities for lattice QCD in quark and lepton flavor physics. New data generated at Belle II, LHCb, BES III, NA62, KOTO, and Fermilab E989, combined with precise calculations of the relevant hadronic physics, may reveal what lies beyond the Standard Model. We outline a path toward improvements of the precision of existing lattice-QCD calculations and discuss groundbreaking new methods that allow lattice QCD to access new observables., Comment: USQCD whitepaper

We calculate the up-, down-, strange-, charm-, and bottom-quark masses using the MILC highly improved staggered-quark ensembles with four flavors of dynamical quarks. We use ensembles at six lattice spacings ranging from $a\approx0.15$~fm to $0.03$~fm and with both physical and unphysical values of the two light and the strange sea-quark masses. We use a new method based on heavy-quark effective theory (HQET) to extract quark masses from heavy-light pseudoscalar meson masses. Combining our analysis with our separate determination of ratios of light-quark masses we present masses of the up, down, strange, charm, and bottom quarks. Our results for the $\overline{\text{MS}}$-renormalized masses are $m_u(2~\text{GeV}) = 2.130(41)$~MeV, $m_d(2~\text{GeV}) = 4.675(56)$~MeV, $m_s(2~\text{GeV}) = 92.47(69)$~MeV, $m_c(3~\text{GeV}) = 983.7(5.6)$~MeV, and $m_c(m_c) = 1273(10)$~MeV, with four active flavors; and $m_b(m_b) = 4195(14)$~MeV with five active flavors. We also obtain ratios of quark masses $m_c/m_s = 11.783(25)$, $m_b/m_s = 53.94(12)$, and $m_b/m_c = 4.578(8)$. The result for $m_c$ matches the precision of the most precise calculation to date, and the other masses and all quoted ratios are the most precise to date. Moreover, these results are the first with a perturbative accuracy of $\alpha_s^4$. As byproducts of our method, we obtain the matrix elements of HQET operators with dimension 4 and 5: $\overline{\Lambda}_\text{MRS}=555(31)$~MeV in the minimal renormalon-subtracted (MRS) scheme, $\mu_\pi^2 = 0.05(22)~\text{GeV}^2$, and $\mu_G^2(m_b)=0.38(2)~\text{GeV}^2$. The MRS scheme [Phys. Rev. D97, 034503 (2018), arXiv:1712.04983 [hep-ph]] is the key new aspect of our method., Comment: The published version; 32 pages and 7 figures

We calculate in three-flavor lattice QCD the short-distance hadronic matrix elements of all five ΔC=2 four-fermion operators that contribute to neutral D-meson mixing both in and beyond the Standard Model. We use the MILC Collaboration’s Nf=2+1 lattice gauge-field configurations generated with asqtad-improved staggered sea quarks. We also employ the asqtad action for the valence light quarks and use the clover action with the Fermilab interpretation for the charm quark. We analyze a large set of ensembles with pions as light as lattice gauge-field configurations generated with asqtad-improved staggered sea quarks. We also employ the asqtad action for the valence light quarks and use the clover action with the Fermilab interpretation for the charm quark. We analyze a large set of ensembles with pions as light as Mπ ≈ 180 MeV and lattice spacings as fine as a ≈ 0.045 fm, thereby enabling good control over the extrapolation to the physical pion mass and continuum limit. We obtain for the matrix elements in the MS−NDR scheme using the choice of evanescent operators proposed by Beneke et al., evaluated at 3 GeV, ⟨D0|Oi|¯D0⟩ = {0.0805(55)16),−0.1561(70)(31), 0.0464(31)(9), 0.2747(129)(55), 0.1035(71)(21)} GeV4 (i=1–5). The errors shown are from statistics and lattice systematics, and the omission of charmed sea quarks, respectively. To illustrate the utility of our matrix-element results, we place bounds on the scale of CP-violating new physics in D0 mixing, finding lower limits of about 10–50×103 TeV for couplings of O(1). To enable our results to be employed in more sophisticated or model-specific phenomenological studies, we provide the correlations among our matrix-element results. For convenience, we also present numerical results in the other commonly used scheme of Buras, Misiak, and Urban.

All lattice-QCD calculations of the hadronic-vacuum-polarization contribution to the muon's anomalous magnetic moment to-date have been performed with degenerate up- and down-quark masses. Here we calculate directly the strong-isospin-breaking correction to aHVPμ for the first time with physical values of mu and md and dynamical u, d, s, and c quarks, thereby removing this important source of systematic uncertainty. We obtain a relative shift to be applied to lattice-QCD results obtained with degenerate light-quark masses of δaHVP,mu≠mdμ= +1.5(7)%, in agreement with estimates from phenomenology and a recent lattice-QCD calculation with unphysically heavy pions., We thank John Campbell, Vera Gülpers, Fred Jegerlehner, Laurent Lellouch, and Silvano Simula for useful discussions. Computations for this work were carried out with resources provided by the USQCD Collaboration, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center and the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, which are funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy; and with resources provided by the National Institute for Computational Science and the Texas Advanced Computing Center, which are funded through the National Science Foundation’s Teragrid/XSEDE Program. Computations were also carried out on the Darwin Supercomputer at the DiRAC facility, which is jointly funded by the U.K. Science and Technology Facility Council, the U.K. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Universities of Cambridge and Glasgow. This work utilized the RMACC Summit supercomputer, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grants No. ACI-1532235 and No. ACI-1532236), the University of Colorado Boulder, and Colorado State University. The Summit supercomputer is a joint effort of the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University. This research is part of the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grants No. OCI- 0725070 and No. ACI-1238993) and the state of Illinois. Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grants No. DE-AC05-06OR23177 (B. C.), No. DE-SC0010120 (S. G.), No. DE-SC0015655 (A. X. K.), No. DESC0009998 (J. L.), No. DE-SC0010005 (E. T. N.), No. DE-FG02-13ER41976 (D. T.), by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grants No. PHY14-17805 (J. L.), No. PHY14-14614 (C. D., A. V.), No. PHY13- 16222 (G. P. L.), No. PHY12-12389 (Y. L.), and No. PHY13-16748 and No. PHY16-20625 (R. S.); by the Royal Society, STFC and Wolfson Foundation (C. T. H. D., D. H., J. K.); by the MINECO (Spain) under Grants No. FPA2013-47836-C-1-P and No. FPA2016- 78220-C3-3-P (E. G.); by the Junta de Andalucía (Spain) under Grant No. FQM-101 (E. G.) by the Fermilab Distinguished Scholars Program (A. X. K.); by the German Excellence Initiative and the European Union Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. 291763 as well as the European Union’s Marie Curie COFUND program (A. S. K.); by the Blue Waters PAID program (Y. L.); and by the U.K. STFC under Grants No. ST/N005872/1 and ST/P00055X/1 (C.M.). Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DESC0012704. Fermilab is operated by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC02- 07CH11359 with the United States Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.

We report the status of an ongoing lattice-QCD calculation of form factors for exclusive semileptonic decays of $B$ mesons with both charged currents ($B\to\pi\ell\nu$, $B_s\to K\ell\nu$) and neutral currents ($B\to\pi\ell^+\ell^-$, $B\to K\ell^+\ell^-$). The results are important for constraining or revealing physics beyond the Standard Model. This work uses MILC's (2+1+1)-flavor ensembles with the HISQ action for the sea and light valence quarks and the clover action in the Fermilab interpretation for the $b$ quark. Simulations are carried out at three lattice spacings down to $0.088$ fm, with both physical and unphysical sea-quark masses. We present preliminary results for correlation-function fits., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; presented at the 35th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 18-24 June 2017, Granada, Spain

We present results for neutral $D$-meson mixing in 2+1-flavor lattice QCD. We compute the matrix elements for all five operators that contribute to $D$ mixing at short distances, including those that only arise beyond the Standard Model. Our results have an uncertainty similar to those of the ETM collaboration (with 2 and with 2+1+1 flavors). This work shares many features with a recent publication on $B$ mixing and with ongoing work on heavy-light decay constants from the Fermilab Lattice and MILC Collaborations./Users/ask/TeX/confs/lat16/307/lat-16-307.pdf

We present a calculation of the form factors of the D $\rightarrow$ Klν and D $\rightarrow$ $\pi$lν semileptonic decays at zero momentum transfer, ultimately for the purpose of determining the Cabibbo-KobayashiMaskawa (CKM) matrix elements |Vcs| and |Vcd|. This work uses MILC Nf = 2+1+1 configurations with the HISQ action for both sea quarks and valence quarks, including several physical mass ensembles and lattice spacings down to 0.042 fm. The calculation is done directly at q 2 = 0 by employing twisted boundary conditions to tune the child particle momenta. Results at the physical point and in the continuum limit will be achieved in the final analysis through the use of Heavy-Meson Staggered $\chi$PT. Here we present our expected error budget and compare with the error of prior calculations

We discuss the reduction of errors in the calculation of the form factor $$f_+^{K \pi}(0)$$ with HISQ fermions on the $$N_f=2+1+1$$ MILC configurations from increased statistics on some key ensembles, new data on ensembles with lattice spacings down to 0.042 fm and the study of finite-volume effects within staggered ChPT. We also study the implications for the unitarity of the CKM matrix in the first row and for current tensions with leptonic determinations of $$\vert V_{us}\vert$$.

We present a progress report on our calculation of the decay constants $f_B$ and $f_{B_s}$ from lattice-QCD simulations with highly-improved staggered quarks. Simulations are carried out with several heavy valence-quark masses on $(2+1+1)$-flavor ensembles that include charm sea quarks. We include data at six lattice spacings and several light sea-quark masses, including an approximately physical-mass ensemble at all but the smallest lattice spacing, 0.03 fm. This range of parameters provides excellent control of the continuum extrapolation to zero lattice spacing and of heavy-quark discretization errors. Finally, using the heavy-quark effective theory expansion we present a method of extracting from the same correlation functions the charm- and bottom-quark masses as well as some low-energy constants appearing in the heavy-quark expansion.

We present a calculation of the $$D\to K \ell \nu$$ and $$D\to\pi \ell \nu$$ semileptonic form factors at $q^2=0$, which enable determinations of the CKM matrix elements $$\lvert{V_{cs}}\rvert$$ and $$\lvert{V_{cd}}\rvert$$, respectively. We use gauge-field configurations generated by the MILC collaboration with four flavors of highly-improved staggered (HISQ) quarks, analyzing several ensembles including those with physical pion masses and approximate lattice spacings ranging from 0.12~fm to 0.042~fm. We also use the HISQ action for the valence quarks. We employ twisted boundary conditions to calculate the form factors at zero momentum transfer directly. We use heavy-light-meson chiral perturbation theory modified for energetic pions and kaons, and supplemented by terms to describe the lattice-spacing dependence, to obtain preliminary results at the physical point and in the continuum limit.

We give a progress report on a project aimed at a high-precision calculation of the decay constants $f_B$ and $$f_{B_s}$$ from simulations with HISQ heavy and light valence and sea quarks. Calculations are carried out with several heavy valence-quark masses on ensembles with 2+1+1 flavors of HISQ sea quarks at five lattice spacings and several light sea-quark mass ratios $$m_{ud}/m_s$$, including approximately physical sea-quark masses. This range of parameters provides excellent control of the continuum limit and of heavy-quark discretization errors. We present a preliminary error budget with projected uncertainties of 2.2~MeV and 1.5~MeV for $f_B$ and $$f_{B_s}$$, respectively.

We calculate---for the first time in three-flavor lattice QCD---the hadronic matrix elements of all five local operators that contribute to neutral ${B}^{0}$- and ${B}_{s}$-meson mixing in and beyond the Standard Model. We present a complete error budget for each matrix element and also provide the full set of correlations among the matrix elements. We also present the corresponding bag parameters and their correlations, as well as specific combinations of the mixing matrix elements that enter the expression for the neutral $B$-meson width difference. We obtain the most precise determination to date of the SU(3)-breaking ratio $\ensuremath{\xi}=1.206(18)(6)$, where the second error stems from the omission of charm-sea quarks, while the first encompasses all other uncertainties. The threefold reduction in total uncertainty, relative to the 2013 Flavor Lattice Averaging Group results, tightens the constraint from $B$ mixing on the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) unitarity triangle. Our calculation employs gauge-field ensembles generated by the MILC Collaboration with four lattice spacings and pion masses close to the physical value. We use the asqtad-improved staggered action for the light-valence quarks and the Fermilab method for the bottom quark. We use heavy-light meson chiral perturbation theory modified to include lattice-spacing effects to extrapolate the five matrix elements to the physical point. We combine our results with experimental measurements of the neutral $B$-meson oscillation frequencies to determine the CKM matrix elements $|{V}_{td}|=8.00(34)(8)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$, $|{V}_{ts}|=39.0(1.2)(0.4)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$, and $|{V}_{td}/{V}_{ts}|=0.2052(31)(10)$, which differ from CKM-unitarity expectations by about $2\ensuremath{\sigma}$. These results and others from flavor-changing-neutral currents point towards an emerging tension between weak processes that are mediated at the loop and tree levels.

We compute the form factors for the $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}K{l}^{+}{l}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ semileptonic decay process in lattice QCD using gauge-field ensembles with $2+1$ flavors of sea quark, generated by the MILC Collaboration. The ensembles span lattice spacings from 0.12 to 0.045 fm and have multiple sea-quark masses to help control the chiral extrapolation. The asqtad improved staggered action is used for the light valence and sea quarks, and the clover action with the Fermilab interpretation is used for the heavy $b$ quark. We present results for the form factors ${f}_{+}({q}^{2})$, ${f}_{0}({q}^{2})$, and ${f}_{T}({q}^{2})$, where ${q}^{2}$ is the momentum transfer, together with a comprehensive examination of systematic errors. Lattice QCD determines the form factors for a limited range of ${q}^{2}$, and we use the model-independent $z$ expansion to cover the whole kinematically allowed range. We present our final form-factor results as coefficients of the $z$ expansion and the correlations between them, where the errors on the coefficients include statistical and all systematic uncertainties. We use this complete description of the form factors to test QCD predictions of the form factors at high and low ${q}^{2}$.

We study the exclusive semileptonic $B$-meson decays $B\to K(\pi)\ell^+\ell^-$, $B\to K(\pi)\nu\bar\nu$, and $B\to\pi\tau\nu$, computing observables in the Standard model using the recent lattice-QCD results for the underlying form factors from the Fermilab Lattice and MILC Collaborations. These processes provide theoretically clean windows into physics beyond the Standard Model because the hadronic uncertainties are now under good control for suitably binned observables. For example, the resulting partially integrated branching fractions for $B\to\pi\mu^+\mu^-$ and $B\to K\mu^+\mu^-$ outside the charmonium resonance region are 1-2$\sigma$ higher than the LHCb Collaboration's recent measurements, where the theoretical and experimental errors are commensurate. The combined tension is 1.7$\sigma$. Combining the Standard-Model rates with LHCb's measurements yields values for the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements $|V_{td}|=7.45{(69)}\times10^{-3}$, $|V_{ts}|=35.7(1.5)\times10^{-3}$, and $|V_{td}/V_{ts}|=0.201{(20)}$, which are compatible with the values obtained from neutral $B_{(s)}$-meson oscillations and have competitive uncertainties. Alternatively, taking the CKM matrix elements from unitarity, we constrain new-physics contributions at the electroweak scale. The constraints on the Wilson coefficients ${\rm Re}(C_9)$ and ${\rm Re}(C_{10})$ from $B\to\pi\mu^+\mu^-$ and $B\to K\mu^+\mu^-$ are competitive with those from $B\to K^* \mu^+\mu^-$, and display a 2.0$\sigma$ tension with the Standard Model. Our predictions for $B\to K(\pi)\nu\bar\nu$ and $B\to\pi\tau\nu$ are close to the current experimental limits., Comment: V3: Typos in Eq. (5.13) and text corrected. Reference added. Version published in Phys. Rev. D

The rare decay B→πℓ^{+}ℓ^{-} arises from b→d flavor-changing neutral currents and could be sensitive to physics beyond the standard model. Here, we present the first ab initio QCD calculation of the B→π tensor form factor f_{T}. Together with the vector and scalar form factors f_{+} and f_{0} from our companion work [J. A. Bailey et al., Phys. Rev. D 92, 014024 (2015)], these parametrize the hadronic contribution to B→π semileptonic decays in any extension of the standard model. We obtain the total branching ratio BR(B^{+}→π^{+}μ^{+}μ^{-})=20.4(2.1)×10^{-9} in the standard model, which is the most precise theoretical determination to date, and agrees with the recent measurement from the LHCb experiment [R. Aaij et al., J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2012) 125].

We present the first unquenched lattice-QCD calculation of the hadronic form factors for the exclusive decay $\overline{B}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}D\ensuremath{\ell}\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}$ at nonzero recoil. We carry out numerical simulations on 14 ensembles of gauge-field configurations generated with $2+1$ flavors of asqtad-improved staggered sea quarks. The ensembles encompass a wide range of lattice spacings (approximately 0.045 to 0.12 fm) and ratios of light (up and down) to strange sea-quark masses ranging from 0.05 to 0.4. For the $b$ and $c$ valence quarks we use improved Wilson fermions with the Fermilab interpretation, while for the light valence quarks we use asqtad-improved staggered fermions. We extrapolate our results to the physical point using rooted staggered heavy-light meson chiral perturbation theory. We then parametrize the form factors and extend them to the full kinematic range using model-independent functions based on analyticity and unitarity. We present our final results for ${f}_{+}({q}^{2})$ and ${f}_{0}({q}^{2})$, including statistical and systematic errors, as coefficients of a series in the variable $z$ and the covariance matrix between these coefficients. We then fit the lattice form-factor data jointly with the experimentally measured differential decay rate from BABAR to determine the CKM matrix element, $|{V}_{cb}|=(39.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.{7}_{\mathrm{QCD}+\mathrm{exp}}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.{2}_{\mathrm{QED}})\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$. As a byproduct of the joint fit we obtain the form factors with improved precision at large recoil. Finally, we use them to update our calculation of the ratio $R(D)$ in the Standard Model, which yields $R(D)=0.299(11)$.

We present a lattice-QCD calculation of the $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{\ell}\ensuremath{\nu}$ semileptonic form factors and a new determination of the CKM matrix element $|{V}_{ub}|$. We use the MILC asqtad ($2+1$)-flavor lattice configurations at four lattice spacings and light-quark masses down to $1/20$ of the physical strange-quark mass. We extrapolate the lattice form factors to the continuum using staggered chiral perturbation theory in the hard-pion and SU(2) limits. We employ a model-independent $z$ parametrization to extrapolate our lattice form factors from large-recoil momentum to the full kinematic range. We introduce a new functional method to propagate information from the chiral-continuum extrapolation to the $z$ expansion. We present our results together with a complete systematic error budget, including a covariance matrix to enable the combination of our form factors with other lattice-QCD and experimental results. To obtain $|{V}_{ub}|$, we simultaneously fit the experimental data for the $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{\ell}\ensuremath{\nu}$ differential decay rate obtained by the BABAR and Belle collaborations together with our lattice form-factor results. We find $|{V}_{ub}|=(3.72\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.16)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$, where the error is from the combined fit to lattice plus experiments and includes all sources of uncertainty. Our form-factor results bring the QCD error on $|{V}_{ub}|$ to the same level as the experimental error. We also provide results for the $B\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{\ell}\ensuremath{\nu}$ vector and scalar form factors obtained from the combined lattice and experiment fit, which are more precisely determined than from our lattice-QCD calculation alone. These results can be used in other phenomenological applications and to test other approaches to QCD.

We present the status of on-going calculations of the $$K\to\pi l\nu$$ and $$D\to K(\pi) l\nu$$ semileptonic form factors at $q^2=0$. These form factors are important for the determination of the CKM matrix elements $$\lvert{V_{us}}\rvert$$ and $$\lvert{V_{cs(d)}}\rvert$$ respectively. This work uses the HISQ action for both valence quarks and sea quarks on MILC $N_f=2+1+1$ configurations. We employ twisted boundary conditions to calculate the form factors at zero momentum transfer directly. The $$K\to\pi$$ results are an update to previously published results with new data at the physical point. The $$D\to K(\pi)$$ results are preliminary.

We report on the status of our calculation of the hadronic matrix elements for neutral $B$-meson mixing with asqtad sea and valence light quarks and using the Wilson clover action with the Fermilab interpretation for the $b$ quark. We calculate the matrix elements of all five local operators that contribute to neutral $B$-meson mixing both in and beyond the Standard Model. We use MILC ensembles with $N_f=2+1$ dynamical flavors at four different lattice spacings in the range $$a \approx 0.045$$--$0.12$~fm, and with light sea-quark masses as low as 0.05 times the physical strange quark mass. We perform a combined chiral-continuum extrapolation including the so-called wrong-spin contributions in simultaneous fits to the matrix elements of the five operators. We present a complete systematic error budget and conclude with an outlook for obtaining final results from this analysis.

In the past year, we calculated with lattice QCD three quantities that were unknown or poorly known. They are the q2 dependence of the form factor in semileptonic D → Klν decay, the decay constant of the D meson, and the mass of the Bc meson. In this talk, we summarize these calculations, with emphasis on their (subsequent) confirmation by experiments.

We present a calculation of the charmonium spectrum with three flavors of dynamical staggered quarks from gauge configurations that were generated by the MILC collaboration. We use the Fermilab action for the valence charm quarks. Our calculation of the spin-averaged 1P--1S and 2S--1S splittings yields a determination of the strong coupling, with $\ams(M_Z) = 0.119 (4)$., 6 pages, uses espcrc2.sty, Lattice2002(heavyquark)

Using the MILC 2+1 flavor asqtad quark action ensembles, we are calculating the form factors f0 and f+ for the semileptonic Bs → Kℓv decay. A total of six ensembles with lattice spacing from ≈ 0.12 to 0.06 fm are being used. At the coarsest and finest lattice spacings, the light quark mass m’l is one-tenth the strange quark mass m’s. At the intermediate lattice spacing, the ratio m’l/m’s ranges from 0.05 to 0.2. The valence b quark is treated using the Sheikholeslami-Wohlert Wilson-clover action with the Fermilab interpretation. The other valence quarks use the asqtad action. When combined with (future) measurements from the LHCb and Belle II experiments, these calculations will provide an alternate determination of the CKM matrix element |Vub|.

We present preliminary results from our analysis of the form factors for the B → D*lv decay at non-zero recoil. Our analysis includes 15 MILC asqtad ensembles with Nf = 2 + 1 flavors of sea quarks and lattice spacings ranging from a ≈ 0.15 fm down to 0.045 fm. The valence light quarks employ the asqtad action, whereas the heavy quarks are treated using the Fermilab action. We conclude with a discussion of future plans and phenomenological implications. When combined with experimental measurements of the decay rate, our calculation will enable a determination of the CKM matrix element |Vcb|.

▪ Abstract We review the current status of determinations of the b-quark mass, mb. We describe the theoretical tools required for determining mb, with particular emphasis on effective field theories both in the continuum and on the lattice. We present several definitions of mband highlight their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we discuss the determinations of mbfrom [Formula: see text] systems, b-flavored hadrons, and high-energy processes, with careful attention to the corresponding theoretical uncertainties.

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 using the experimentally determined value of $f_{\pi^+}$ for normalization. We use the MILC highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) ensembles with four dynamical quark flavors---up, down, strange, and charm---and with both physical and unphysical values of the light sea-quark masses. The use of physical pions removes the need for a chiral extrapolation, thereby eliminating a significant source of uncertainty in previous calculations. Four different lattice spacings ranging from $a\approx 0.06$ fm to $0.15$ fm are included in the analysis to control the extrapolation to the continuum limit. 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. The errors on our results for the charm decay constants and their ratio are approximately two to four times smaller than those of the most precise previous lattice calculations. 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., Comment: v2: minor clarifications and additions; version published in Phys. Rev. D. (73 pages, 26 figures.)

We compute the zero-recoil form factor for the semileptonic decay ${\overline{B}}^{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{D}^{*+}{\ensuremath{\ell}}^{\ensuremath{-}}\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}$ (and modes related by isospin and charge conjugation) using lattice QCD with three flavors of sea quarks. We use an improved staggered action for the light valence and sea quarks (the MILC asqtad configurations), and the Fermilab action for the heavy quarks. Our calculations incorporate higher statistics, finer lattice spacings, and lighter quark masses than our 2008 work. As a byproduct of tuning the new data set, we obtain the ${D}_{s}$ and ${B}_{s}$ hyperfine splittings with few-MeV accuracy. For the zero-recoil form factor, we obtain $\mathcal{F}(1)=0.906(4)(12)$, where the first error is statistical and the second is the sum in quadrature of all systematic errors. With the latest Heavy Flavor Averaging Group average of experimental results and a cautious treatment of QED effects, we find $|{V}_{cb}|=(39.04\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.4{9}_{\text{expt}}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5{3}_{\mathrm{QCD}}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.1{9}_{\mathrm{QED}})\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}1{0}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$. The QCD error is now commensurate with the experimental error.

I review the status of lattice-QCD calculations relevant to quark flavor physics. The recent availability of physical-mass ensembles with large physical volumes generated by a growing number of lattice collaborations is an exciting development and I discuss their impact on the landscape of lattice flavor physics calculations. The activities of the newly formed FLAG-2 collaboration which aims to provide averages of quantities calculated in lattice QCD that are relevant for quark flavor physics are also discussed. My talk covers (a subset of) the same quantities reviewed by FLAG-2, including results for K, D(s), and B(s) meson decay constants and semileptonic decay form factors, as well as for hadronic matrix elements of neutral (K, D, and B (s) ) meson mixing. I also briefly discuss recent progress towards understanding nonleptonic K decay and long-distance contributions to DmK.

Yuzhi Liu,a,b,c Ran Zhou,d,b Jon A. Bailey∗,e A. Bazavov, f ,a C. Bernard,g C. M. Bouchard,h C. DeTar,i Daping Du, j,k A. X. El-Khadra, j,b J. Foley,i E. D. Freeland,l E. Gamiz,m Steven Gottlieb,d U. M. Heller,n R. D. Jain, j Jongjeong Kim,o A. S. Kronfeld†,b J. Laihop,k L. Levkova,i P. B. Mackenzie,b Y. Meurice,a D. Mohler,b E. T. Neil,b,c,q M. B. Oktay,i Si-Wei Qiu,i J. N. Simone,b R. Sugar,r D. Toussaint,o and R. S. Van de Waterb aDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA bFermi National Accelerator Laboratory,‡ Batavia, Illinois, USA cDepartment of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA dDepartment of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA eDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea f Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory,§ Upton, New York, USA gDepartment of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA hDepartment of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA iDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA jPhysics Department, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA kDepartment of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA l Liberal Arts Department, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA mCAFPE and Departamento de Fisica Teorica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada

We update our determinations of fD+, fDs , fK, and quark mass ratios from simulations with four flavors of HISQ dynamical quarks. The availability of ensembles with light quarks near their physical mass means that we can extract physical results with only small corrections for valence- and sea-quark mass mistunings instead of a chiral extrapolation. The adjusted valencequark masses and lattice spacings may be determined from an ensemble-by-ensemble analysis, and the results for the quark mass ratios then extrapolated to the continuum limit. Our central values of the charmed meson decay constants, however, come from an alternative analysis, which uses staggered chiral perturbation theory for the heavy-light mesons, and allows us to incorporate data at unphysical quark masses where statistical errors are often smaller. A jackknife analysis propagated through all of these steps takes account of the correlations among all the quantities used in the analysis. Systematic errors from the finite spatial size and EM effects are estimated by varying the parameters in the analysis, and systematic errors from the assumptions in the continuum extrapolation are estimated from the spread of values from different extrapolations.