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Bazavov, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Bazavov, A..

At least 19 records

Charm degrees of freedom in hot matter from lattice QCD

We study the nature of charm degrees of freedom in hot strong interaction matter by performing lattice QCD calculations of the second and fourth-order cumulants of charm fluctuations, and their correlations with net baryon number, electric charge and strangeness fluctuations. We show that below the chiral crossover temperature thermodynamics of charm can be very well understood in terms of charmed hadrons. Above the chiral transition charm quarks show up as new degrees of freedom contributing to the partial charm pressure. However, up to temperatures as high as 175 MeV charmed hadron-like excitations provide a significant contribution to the partial charm pressure.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Semileptonic form factors for $$B\rightarrow D^*\ell \nu $$ at nonzero recoil from $$2+1$$-flavor lattice QCD: Fermilab Lattice and MILC Collaborations

Abstract We present the first unquenched lattice-QCD calculation of the form factors for the decay $$B\rightarrow D^*\ell \nu $$ B → D ∗ ℓ ν at nonzero recoil. Our analysis includes 15 MILC ensembles with $$N_f=2+1$$ N f = 2 + 1 flavors of asqtad sea quarks, with a strange quark mass close to its physical mass. The lattice spacings range from $$a\approx 0.15$$ a ≈ 0.15 fm down to 0.045 fm, while the ratio between the light- and the strange-quark masses ranges from 0.05 to 0.4. The valence b and c quarks are treated using the Wilson-clover action with the Fermilab interpretation, whereas the light sector employs asqtad staggered fermions. We extrapolate our results to the physical point in the continuum limit using rooted staggered heavy-light meson chiral perturbation theory. Then we apply a model-independent parametrization to extend the form factors to the full kinematic range. With this parametrization we perform a joint lattice-QCD/experiment fit using several experimental datasets to determine the CKM matrix element $$|V_{cb}|$$ | V cb | . We obtain $$\left| V_{cb}\right| = (38.40 \pm 0.68_{\text {th}} \pm 0.34_{\text {exp}} \pm 0.18_{\text {EM}})\times 10^{-3}$$ V cb = ( 38.40 ± 0 . 68 th ± 0 . 34 exp ± 0 . 18 EM ) × 10 - 3 . The first error is theoretical, the second comes from experiment and the last one includes electromagnetic and electroweak uncertainties, with an overall $$\chi ^2\text {/dof} = 126/84$$ χ 2 /dof = 126 / 84 , which illustrates the tensions between the experimental data sets, and between theory and experiment. This result is in agreement with previous exclusive determinations, but the tension with the inclusive determination remains. Finally, we integrate the differential decay rate obtained solely from lattice data to predict $$R(D^*) = 0.265 \pm 0.013$$ R ( D ∗ ) = 0.265 ± 0.013 , which confirms the current tension between theory and experiment.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

B s → K ℓ ν decay from lattice QCD

We use lattice QCD to calculate the form factors f+(q 2 ) and f 0 (q 2 ) for the semileptonic decay Bs→Kℓν. Our calculation uses six MILC asqtad 2+1 flavor gauge-field ensembles with three lattice spacings. At the smallest and largest lattice spacing the light-quark sea mass is set to 1/10 the strange-quark mass. At the intermediate lattice spacing, we use four values for the light-quark sea mass ranging from 1/5 to 1/20 of the strange-quark mass. We use the asqtad improved staggered action for the light valence quarks, and the clover action with the Fermilab interpolation for the heavy valence bottom quark. We use SU(2) hard-kaon heavy-meson rooted staggered chiral perturbation theory to take the chiral-continuum limit. A functional z expansion is used to extend the form factors to the full kinematic range. We present predictions for the differential decay rate for both Bs→Kμν and Bs→Kτν. We also present results for the forward-backward asymmetry, the lepton polarization asymmetry, ratios of the scalar and vector form factors for the decays Bs→Kℓν and Bs→Dsℓν. Our results, together with future experimental measurements, can be used to determine the magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element |$V_{ub}$|.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

| V u s | from K ℓ 3 decay and four-flavor lattice QCD

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→πℓν vector form factor at zero momentum transfer, $f_+^{K^0π^-}$(0)=0.9696(15) stat (12) 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) 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 π +, which uses |$V_{ud}$| as input. Our value of |$V_{us}$| is in tension at the 2–2.6σ 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 β 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_+^{Kπ}$0) due to nonequilibrated topological charge at leading order in chiral perturbation theory, for both the full-QCD and the partially quenched cases. We also obtain the combination of low-energy constants in the chiral effective Lagrangian [C$^{12}_r$+C$^{34}_r$-(L$_5^r$)2](M ρ )=(2.92±0.31)×10 -6 .

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

$D$ meson Semileptonic Decay Form Factors at $q^2 = 0$

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.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

B- and D-meson leptonic decay constants and quark masses from four-flavor lattice QCD

We describe a recent lattice-QCD calculation of the leptonic decay constants of heavy-light pseudoscalar mesons containing charm and bottom quarks and of the masses of the up, down, strange, charm, and bottom quarks. Results for these quantities are of the highest precision to date. Calculations use 24 isospin-symmetric ensembles of gauge-field configurations with six different lattice spacings as small as approximately 0.03 fm and several values of the light quark masses down to physical values of the average up- and down-sea-quark masses. We use the highly-improved staggered quark (HISQ) formulation for valence and sea quarks, including the bottom quark. The analysis employs heavy-quark effective theory (HQET). A novel HQET method is used in the determination of the quark masses.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Skewness and kurtosis of net baryon-number distributions at small values of the baryon chemical potential

In this paper, we present results for the ratios of mean (M B ), variance (σ$2\atop{B}$), skewness (S B ) and kurtosis (κ B ) of net baryon-number fluctuations obtained in lattice QCD calculations with physical values of light and strange quark masses. Using next-to-leading order Taylor expansions in baryon chemical potential we find that qualitative features of these ratios closely resemble the corresponding experimentally measured cumulants ratios of net proton-number fluctuations for beam energies down to √sNN ≥ 19.6 GeV. We show that the difference in cumulant ratios for the mean net baryon-number, M B /σ$2\atop{B}$ = χ$B\atop{1}$ (T, µ B )/χ$B\atop{2}$ (T, µ B ) and the normalized skewness, S B σ B = χ$B\atop{3}$ (T, µB)/χ2 (T, µB ), nat-urally arises in QCD thermodynamics. Moreover, we establish a close relation between skewness and kurtosis ratios, S B σ$B\atop{3}$/M B = χ$B\atop{3}$ (T, µ B )/χ$B\atop{1}$ (T,µ B ) and κ B σ$2\atop{B}$ = χ$B\atop{4}$ (T,μ B )/χ$B\atop{2}$ (T,μ B ), valid at small values of the baryon chemical potential.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗