Search

We introduce maximum-likelihood fragment tomography (MLFT) as an improved circuit cutting technique for running clustered quantum circuits on quantum devices with a limited number of qubits. In addition to minimizing the classical computing overhead of circuit cutting methods, MLFT finds the most likely probability distribution for the output of a quantum circuit, given the measurement data obtained from the circuit’s fragments. We demonstrate the benefits of MLFT for accurately estimating the output of a fragmented quantum circuit with numerical experiments on random unitary circuits. Finally, we show that circuit cutting can estimate the output of a clustered circuit with higher fidelity than full circuit execution, thereby motivating the use of circuit cutting as a standard tool for running clustered circuits on quantum hardware.

The Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) is a ground-based radio detector at the South Pole designed to capture Askaryan emission from ultra-high energy neutrinos interacting within the Antarctic ice. The newest ARA station has been equipped with a phased array trigger, in which radio signals in multiple antennas are summed in predetermined directions prior to the trigger. In this way, impulsive signals add coherently, while noise likely does not, allowing the trigger threshold to be lower than a traditional ARA station. Early results on just a fraction of available data from this new system prove the feasibility of a low-threshold analysis.

The Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) is an ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrino ($E_{\nu}$ > $10^{17}$ eV) detector at South Pole. ARA aims to utilize radio signals detected from UHE neutrino interactions in the glacial ice to infer properties about the interaction vertex as well as the incident neutrino. To retrieve these properties from experiment data, the first step is to extract timing, amplitude and frequency information from waveforms of different antennas buried in the deep ice. These features can then be utilized in a neural network to reconstruct the neutrino interaction vertex position, incoming neutrino direction and shower energy. So far, vertex can be reconstructed through interferometry while neutrino reconstruction is still under investigation. Here I will present a solution based on multi-task deep neural networks which can perform reconstruction of both vertex and incoming neutrinos with a reasonable precision. After training, this solution is capable of rapid reconstructions (e.g. 0.1 ms/event compared to 10000 ms/event in a conventional routine) useful for trigger and filter decisions, and can be easily generalized to different station configurations for both design and analysis purposes.

We use non-perturbative lattice calculations to investigate the finite-temperature confinement transition of stealth dark matter, focusing on the regime in which this early-universe transition is first order and would generate a stochastic background of gravitational waves. Stealth dark matter extends the standard model with a new strongly coupled SU(4) gauge sector with four massive fermions in the fundamental representation, producing a stable spin-0 'dark baryon' as a viable composite dark matter candidate. Future searches for stochastic gravitational waves will provide a new way to discover or constrain stealth dark matter, in addition to previously investigated direct-detection and collider experiments. As a first step to enabling this phenomenology, we determine how heavy the dark fermions need to be in order to produce a first-order stealth dark matter confinement transition., Data release at doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3921870

We propose using Normalizing Flows as a trainable kernel within the molecular dynamics update of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC). By learning (invertible) transformations that simplify our dynamics, we can outperform traditional methods at generating independent configurations. We show that, using a carefully constructed network architecture, our approach can be easily scaled to large lattice volumes with minimal retraining effort. The source code for our implementation is publicly available online at https://github.com/nftqcd/fthmc., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, presented at The 38th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, LATTICE2021 26th-30th July, 2021 Zoom/Gather @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) is an ultra-high energy (UHE, $>10^{17}$ eV) neutrino detector designed to observe neutrinos by searching for the radio waves emitted by the relativistic products of neutrino-nucleon interactions in Antarctic ice. In this paper, we present constraints on the diffuse flux of ultra-high energy neutrinos between $10^{16}-10^{21}$ eV resulting from a search for neutrinos in two complementary analyses, both analyzing four years of data (2013-2016) from the two deep stations (A2, A3) operating at that time. We place a 90 % CL upper limit on the diffuse all flavor neutrino flux at $10^{18}$ eV of $EF(E)=5.6\times10^{-16}$ $\textrm{cm}^{-2}$$\textrm{s}^{-1}$$\textrm{sr}^{-1}$. This analysis includes four times the exposure of the previous ARA result, and represents approximately 1/5 the exposure expected from operating ARA until the end of 2022., 12 pages, 7 figures; Accepted to PRD

We present a modification of the Hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm for tackling the critical slowing down of generating Markov chains of lattice gauge configurations towards the continuum limit. We propose a new method to exchange information within an ensemble of Markov chains, and use it to construct an approximate inverse Hessian matrix of the action inspired from quasi-Newton algorithms for optimization. The kinetic term of the molecular dynamics evolution includes the approximate Hessian for long distance couplings among the momenta. We show the result of applying the new algorithm to the $U(1)$ gauge theory in two dimensions, and discuss our future plans., 7 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of the 36th Annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2018), 22-28 July 2018, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan USA

We present a lattice calculation of the electromagnetic (EM) effects on the masses of light pseudoscalar mesons. The simulations employ 2+1 dynamical flavors of asqtad QCD quarks, and quenched photons. Lattice spacings vary from $\approx 0.12$ fm to $\approx 0.045$ fm. We compute the quantity $\epsilon$, which parameterizes the corrections to Dashen's theorem for the $K^+$-$K^0$ EM mass splitting, as well as $\epsilon_{K^0}$, which parameterizes the EM contribution to the mass of the $K^0$ itself. An extension of the nonperturbative EM renormalization scheme introduced by the BMW group is used in separating EM effects from isospin-violating quark mass effects. We correct for leading finite-volume effects in our realization of lattice electrodynamics in chiral perturbation theory, and remaining finite-volume errors are relatively small. While electroquenched effects are under control for $\epsilon$, they are estimated only qualitatively for $\epsilon_{K^0}$, and constitute one of the largest sources of uncertainty for that quantity. We find $\epsilon = 0.78(1)_{\rm stat}({}^{+\phantom{1}8}_{-11})_{\rm syst}$ and $\epsilon_{K^0}=0.035(3)_{\rm stat}(20)_{\rm syst}$. We then use these results on 2+1+1 flavor pure QCD HISQ ensembles and find $m_u/m_d = 0.4529(48)_{\rm stat}( {}_{-\phantom{1}67}^{+150})_{\rm syst}$., Comment: Version published in Phys. Rev. D. Compared to v1, more discussion of nonperturbative EM renormalization scheme, of statistical errors (with 3 added figures), and of choice QED_{TL} in finite volume. 87 pages, 35 figures

We present a method for calculating eigenvectors of the staggered Dirac operator based on the Golub-Kahan-Lanczos bidiagonalization algorithm. Instead of using orthogonalization during the bidiagonalization procedure to increase stability, we choose to stabilize the method by combining it with an outer iteration that refines the approximate eigenvectors obtained from the inner bidiagonalization procedure. We discuss the performance of the current implementation using QEX and compare with other methods.

We present a new software framework for simulating lattice field theories. It features an intuitive programming interface, while simultaneously achieving high performance supercomputing, all in one programming language, Nim. With a macro system based on its abstract syntax tree, the language enables us to check and optimize our code at compile time. It also allows us to code intrinsics that map directly to machine instructions, and generates efficient native code. We show how we use Nim's metaprogramming features in our code, and present the current status of the code and future plans., 6 pages, 1 figures, presented at the 38th International Conference on High Energy Physics, August 3 - 10, 2016, Chicago

We present results for the spectrum of a strongly interacting SU(3) gauge theory with $N_f = 8$ light fermions in the fundamental representation. Carrying out non-perturbative lattice calculations at the lightest masses and largest volumes considered to date, we confirm the existence of a remarkably light singlet scalar particle. We explore the rich resonance spectrum of the 8-flavor theory in the context of the search for new physics beyond the standard model at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Connecting our results to models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking, we estimate the vector resonance mass to be about 2 TeV with a width of roughly 450 GeV, and predict additional resonances with masses below ~3 TeV., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. Added report number. Version submitted to journal

We present a new model of "Stealth Dark Matter": a composite baryonic scalar of an $SU(N_D)$ strongly-coupled theory with even $N_D \geq 4$. All mass scales are technically natural, and dark matter stability is automatic without imposing an additional discrete or global symmetry. Constituent fermions transform in vector-like representations of the electroweak group that permit both electroweak-breaking and electroweak-preserving mass terms. This gives a tunable coupling of stealth dark matter to the Higgs boson independent of the dark matter mass itself. We specialize to $SU(4)$, and investigate the constraints on the model from dark meson decay, electroweak precision measurements, basic collider limits, and spin-independent direct detection scattering through Higgs exchange. We exploit our earlier lattice simulations that determined the composite spectrum as well as the effective Higgs coupling of stealth dark matter in order to place bounds from direct detection, excluding constituent fermions with dominantly electroweak-breaking masses. A lower bound on the dark baryon mass $m_B \gtrsim 300$ GeV is obtained from the indirect requirement that the lightest dark meson not be observable at LEP II. We briefly survey some intriguing properties of stealth dark matter that are worthy of future study, including: collider studies of dark meson production and decay; indirect detection signals from annihilation; relic abundance estimates for both symmetric and asymmetric mechanisms; and direct detection through electromagnetic polarizability, a detailed study of which will appear in a companion paper., 15 pages, 3 figures, citations added, typos fixed, minor clarifications

We report on the MILC Collaboration calculation of electromagnetic effects on light pseudoscalar mesons. The simulations employ asqtad staggered dynamical quarks in QCD plus quenched photons, with lattice spacings varying from 0.12 to 0.06 fm. Finite volume corrections for the MILC realization of lattice electrodynamics have been calculated in chiral perturbation theory and applied to the lattice data. These corrections differ from those calculated by Hayakawa and Uno because our treatment of zero modes differs from theirs. Updated results for the corrections to “Dashen’s theorem” are presented.

We give an introduction to the FUEL project for lattice field theory code. The code being developed (called “qhmc”) was initially targeted for gauge field generation for beyond standard model theories, and is now growing into a more general framework suitable for analysis too. The design is based on using the Lua scripting language as a wrapper for existing lattice field theory libraries, which provides a quick and easy way to develop new calculations. The implementation currently only supports the USQCD QOPQDP and QDP/C libraries, with support for other optimized libraries planned. We will discuss the current status of the code along with future plans for development.

We discuss the Tensor Renormalization Group (TRG) method for the O(2) model with a chemical potential in 1+1 dimensions with emphasis on near gapless/conformal situations. We emphasize the role played by the late Leo Kadanoff in the development of this theoretical framework. We describe the entanglement entropy in the superfluid phase (see arXiv:1507.01471 for details). We present recent progress on optimized truncation methods., Comment: Submitted as PoS(LATTICE 2015)285. Talk given by Yannick Meurice at the The 33rd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 14 -18 July 2015, Kobe, Japan. Latex with 7 pages and 9 figures

We consider chiral symmetry breaking at nonzero chemical potential and discuss the relation with the spectrum of the Dirac operator. We solve the so called Silver Blaze Problem that the chiral condensate at zero temperature does not depend on the chemical potential while this is not the case for the Dirac spectrum and the weight of the partition function., Comment: Invited talk at the International Conference on QCD and Hadronic Physics, Beijing, June 16-20, 2005. Latex, 6 pages, 3 figures

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 our progress on a study of the $O(3)$ model in two-dimensions using the Tensor Renormalization Group method. We first construct the theory in terms of tensors, and show how to construct $n$-point correlation functions. We then give results for thermodynamic quantities at finite and infinite volume, as well as 2-point correlation function data. We discuss some of the advantages and challenges of tensor renormalization and future directions in which to work., 7 pages, 8 figures

We present the spectrum of baryons in $SU(4)$ gauge theory with fundamental fermion constituents, which is of significant interest for composite dark matter model building. We first compare the spectra and properties of baryons in $SU(3)$ and $SU(4)$ gauge theories (in which they are fermionic and bosonic, respectively) and then compute the cross section for direct detection of dark matter via Higgs boson exchange for TeV-scale composite dark matter arising from a confining $SU(4)$ gauge sector. Comparison with the latest LUX results leads to tight bounds on the fraction of the mass of the constituent fermion that may arise from electroweak symmetry breaking. Lattice calculations of the dark matter mass spectrum and the Higgs--dark-matter coupling are performed on quenched ${16}^{3}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}32$, ${32}^{3}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}64$, ${48}^{3}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}96$, and ${64}^{3}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}128$ lattices with three different lattice spacings, using Wilson fermions with moderate to large pseudoscalar meson masses. Our results lay a foundation for future analytic and numerical studies of composite baryonic dark matter.

We present recent results on the QCD equation of state with 2+1+1 flavors of highly improved staggered quarks (HISQ). We focus on three sets of ensembles with temporal extent 6, 8 and 10, that reach up to temperatures of 967, 725 and 580 MeV, respectively. The strange and charm quark masses are tuned to the physical values and the light quarks mass is set to one fifth of the strange. This corresponds to a Goldstone pion of about 300 MeV.

Using lattice simulations, we study the infrared behavior of a particularly interesting SU(2) gauge theory, with six massless Dirac fermions in the fundamental representation. We compute the running gauge coupling derived nonperturbatively from the Schr\"odinger functional of the theory, finding no evidence for an infrared fixed point up through gauge couplings ${\overline{g}}^{2}$ of order 20. This implies that the theory either is governed in the infrared by a fixed point of considerable strength, unseen so far in nonsupersymmetric gauge theories, or breaks its global chiral symmetries producing a large number of composite Nambu-Goldstone bosons relative to the number of underlying degrees of freedom. Thus either of these phases exhibits novel behavior.

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

We report on the calculation by the MILC Collaboration of the electromagnetic effects on kaon and pion masses. These masses are computed in QCD with dynamical (asqtad staggered) quarks plus quenched photons at three lattice spacings varying from 0.12 to 0.06 fm. The masses are fit to staggered chiral perturbation theory with NLO electromagnetic terms, as well as analytic terms at higher order. We extrapolate the results to physical light-quark masses and to the continuum limit. At the current stage of the analysis, most, but not all, of the systematic errors have been estimated. The main goal is the comparison of kaon electromagnetic splittings to those of the pion, i.e., an evaluation of the corrections to “Dashen’s theorem.” This in turn will allow us to significantly reduce the systematic errors in our determination of m u /m d .

A calculation of the ratio of leptonic decay constants ${f}_{{K}^{+}}/{f}_{{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}}$ makes possible a precise determination of the ratio of Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements $|{V}_{\mathrm{us}}|/|{V}_{\mathrm{ud}}|$ in the standard model, and places a stringent constraint on the scale of new physics that would lead to deviations from unitarity in the first row of the CKM matrix. We compute ${f}_{{K}^{+}}/{f}_{{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}}$ numerically in unquenched lattice QCD using gauge-field ensembles recently generated that include four flavors of dynamical quarks: up, down, strange, and charm. We analyze data at four lattice spacings $a\ensuremath{\approx}0.06$, 0.09, 0.12, and 0.15 fm with simulated pion masses down to the physical value 135 MeV. We obtain ${f}_{{K}^{+}}/{f}_{{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}}=1.1947(26)(37)$, where the errors are statistical and total systematic, respectively. This is our first physics result from our ${N}_{f}=2+1+1$ ensembles, and the first calculation of ${f}_{{K}^{+}}/{f}_{{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}}$ from lattice-QCD simulations at the physical point. Our result is the most precise lattice-QCD determination of ${f}_{{K}^{+}}/{f}_{{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}}$, with an error comparable to the current world average. When combined with experimental measurements of the leptonic branching fractions, it leads to a precise determination of $|{V}_{\mathrm{us}}|/|{V}_{\mathrm{ud}}|=0.2309(9)(4)$ where the errors are theoretical and experimental, respectively.

Preliminary results from simulations with 2+1 dynamical quark flavors at a lattice spacing of 0.09 fm are combined with earlier results at a=0.13 fm. We examine the approach to the continuum limit and investigate the dependence of the pseudoscalar masses and decay constants as the sea and valence quark masses are separately varied., Comment: Lattice2002(spectrum)

As a test of the chiral properties of the improved Asqtad (staggered fermion) action, we have been measuring the topological susceptibility as a function of quark masses for 2 + 1 dynamical flavors. We report preliminary results, which show reasonable agreement with leading order chiral perturbation theory for lattice spacing less than 0.1 fm. The total topological charge, however, shows strong persistence over Monte Carlo time., Comment: Lattice2002(algor)

We present a comparison of two highly optimized methods for extracting the topological charge density of a lattice based on smoothing away non-topological fluctuations. The methods are Improved Cooling and Hypercubic Smearing. We find that while the two methods differ significantly in their philosophy and formulation, they produce surprisingly similar results after a few sweeps. This supports the notion that, at least after the initial sweeps, the surviving topological information they produce is physical.

We summarize our measurement of the mass of the exotic $1^{-+}$ hybrid meson using an improved Kogut-Susskind action. We show results from both quenched and dynamical quark simulations and compare with results from Wilson quarks. Extrapolation of these results to the physical quark mass allows comparison with experimental candidates for the $1^{-+}$ hybrid meson., Lattice2002(spectrum)

We fit lattice-QCD data for light-pseudoscalar masses and decay constants, from HISQ configurations generated by MILC, to SU(3) staggered chiral perturbation theory. At present such fits have rather high values of χ2/d.o.f., possibly due to the lack of ensembles with lighter-than-physical sea strange-quark masses. We propose solutions to this problem for future work. We also perform simple linear interpolations near the physical point on two ensembles with different lattice spacings, and obtain the preliminary result ( fK/ fπ) = 1.1872(41) in the continuum limit. XXIX International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory July 10 16 2011 Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe, California

We describe an adaptive multigrid algorithm for solving inverses of the domain-wall fermion operator. Our multigrid algorithm uses an adaptive projection of near-null vectors of the domain-wall operator onto coarser four-dimensional lattices. This extension of multigrid techniques to a chiral fermion action will greatly reduce overall computation cost, and the elimination of the fifth dimension in the coarse space reduces the relative cost of using chiral fermions compared to discarding this symmetry. We demonstrate near-elimination of critical slowing as the quark mass is reduced and small volume dependence, which may be suppressed by taking advantage of the recursive nature of the algorithm.

Using domain-wall lattice simulations, we study pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar scattering in the maximal isospin channel for an SU(3) gauge theory with two and six fermion flavors in the fundamental representation. This calculation of the S-wave scattering length is related to the next-to-leading order corrections to WW scattering through the low-energy coefficients of the chiral Lagrangian. While two and six flavor scattering lengths are similar for a fixed ratio of the pseudoscalar mass to its decay constant, six-flavor scattering shows a somewhat less repulsive next-to-leading order interaction than its two-flavor counterpart. Estimates are made for the WW scattering parameters and the plausibility of detection is discussed., 8 pages, 6 figures

We calculate pseudoscalar masses on gauge configurations containing the effects of 2+1 flavors of dynamical asqtad quarks and quenched electromagnetism. The lattice spacings vary from 0.12 to 0.06 fm. The masses are fit with staggered chiral perturbation theory including NLO electromagnetic terms. We attempt to extract the fit parameters for the electromagnetic contributions, while taking into account the finite volume effects, and extrapolate them to the physical limit., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Proceedings of the 30th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory - Lattice 2012; June 24-29, 2012; Cairns, Australia. Expanded acknowledgements

We present a random matrix theory (RMT) for the staggered lattice QCD Dirac operator. The staggered RMT is equivalent to the zero-momentum limit of the staggered chiral Lagrangian and includes all taste breaking terms at their leading order. This is an extension of previous work which only included some of the taste breaking terms. We will also present some results for the taste breaking contributions to the partition function and the Dirac eigenvalues., 12 pages, 7 figures, v2 has minor edits and corrections to some equations to match published version

We report on the status of a program of generating and using configurations with four flavors of dynamical quarks, using the HISQ action. We study the lattice spacing dependence of physical quantities in these simulations, using runs at several lattice spacings, but with the light quark mass held fixed at two tenths of the strange quark mass. We find that the lattice artifacts in the HISQ simulations are much smaller than those in the asqtad simulations at the same lattice spacings and quark masses. We also discuss methods for setting the scale, or assigning a lattice spacing to ensembles run at unphysical parameters., Proceedings of the XXVIII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, Lattice2010

We present an adaptive multigrid solver for application to the non-Hermitian Wilson-Dirac system of QCD. The key components leading to the success of our proposed algorithm are the use of an adaptive projection onto coarse grids that preserves the near null space of the system matrix together with a simplified form of the correction based on the so-called gamma_5-Hermitian symmetry of the Dirac operator. We demonstrate that the algorithm nearly eliminates critical slowing down in the chiral limit and that it has weak dependence on the lattice volume.

We study the lattice spacing dependence, or scaling, of physical quantities using the highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) action introduced by the HPQCD/UKQCD Collaboration, comparing our results to similar simulations with the asqtad fermion action. Results are based on calculations with lattice spacings approximately 0.15, 0.12, and 0.09 fm, using four flavors of dynamical HISQ quarks. The strange and charm quark masses are near their physical values, and the light-quark mass is set to 0.2 times the strange-quark mass. We look at the lattice spacing dependence of hadron masses, pseudoscalar meson decay constants, and the topological susceptibility. In addition to the commonly used determination of the lattice spacing through the static quark potential, we examine a determination proposed by the HPQCD Collaboration that uses the decay constant of a fictitious ''unmixed ss'' pseudoscalar meson. We find that the lattice artifacts in the HISQ simulations are much smaller than those in the asqtad simulations at the same lattice spacings and quark masses.

We describe initial results by the Lattice Strong Dynamics (LSD) collaboration of a study into the variation of chiral properties of chiral properties of SU(3) Yang-Mills gauge theory as the number of massless flavors changes from $N_f = 2$ to $N_f = 6$, with a focus on the use of chiral perturbation theory., 9 pages, 3 figures. Presented at the 6th International Workshop on Chiral Dynamics, University of Bern, Switzerland, July 6-10 2009

We study the chiral condensate $$ for an SU(3) gauge theory with $N_f$ massless Dirac fermions in the fundamental representation when $N_f$ is increased from 2 to 6. For $N_f=2$, our lattice simulations of $/F^3$, where $F$ is the Nambu-Goldstone-boson decay constant, agree with the measured QCD value. For $N_f = 6$, this ratio shows significant enhancement, presaging an even larger enhancement anticipated as $N_f$ increases further, toward the critical value for transition from confinement to infrared conformality., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. v2: revised version for PRL

J. Brannicka, R. C. Browerbc, S. F. McCormicke, T. A. Manteuffele, J. C. Osbornbd and C. Rebbibc a Department of Mathematics, The Pennsylvania State University, 221 McAllister Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA b Center for Computational Science, Boston University, 3 Cummington St, MA 02215, USA c Department of Physics, Boston University, 590 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA d Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439, USA e Department of Applied Mathematics, Campus Box 526, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA

We present our new results for the QCD equation of state at nonzero chemical potential at N_t=6 and compare them with N_t=4. We use the Taylor expansion method with terms up to sixth order in simulations with 2+1 flavors of improved asqtad quarks along a line of constant physics with m_l=0.1 m_s and approximately physical strange quark mass m_s.

We discuss the calculation of disconnected diagrams needed for determining the strange quark content of the nucleon on the lattice. We present results for the strange scalar form factor and the related parameter f_Ts, which enters into the cross-section for the scattering of dark matter off nuclei in supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. In addition, we present results for the strange contribution to the nucleon's axial and electromagnetic form factors. The calculations were performed with two dynamical flavors of Wilson fermions on a 24^3 x 64 anisotropic lattice with a_s = 3a_t = 0.11 fm and M_pi ~ 400 MeV., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, presented at the XXVI International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2008), Williamsburg, Virginia, July 14-19, 2008

The Dirac spectrum of QCD with dynamical fermions at nonzero chemical potential is characterized by three regions, a region with a constant eigenvalue density, a region where the eigenvalue density shows oscillations that grow exponentially with the volume and the remainder of the complex plane where the eigenvalue density is zero. In this paper we derive the phase diagram of the Dirac spectrum from a chiral Lagrangian. We show that the constant eigenvalue density corresponds to a pion condensed phase while the strongly oscillating region is given by a kaon condensed phase. The normal phase with nonzero chiral condensate but vanishing Bose condensates coincides with the region of the complex plane where there are no eigenvalues., Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures

The chiral condensate in QCD at zero temperature does not depend on the quark chemical potential (up to one third the nucleon mass), whereas the spectral density of the Dirac operator shows a strong dependence on the chemical potential. The cancellations which make this possible also occur on the microscopic scale, where they can be investigated by means of a random matrix model. We show that they can be understood in terms of orthogonality properties of orthogonal polynomials. In the strong non-Hermiticity limit they are related to integrability properties of the spectral density. As a by-product we find exact analytical expressions for the partially quenched chiral condensate in the microscopic domain at nonzero chemical potential., Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures, version to appear in PRD