Improvement of the Staggered Fermion Operators

We present a complete and detailed derivation of the finite lattice spacing corrections to staggered fermion matrix elements. Expanding upon arguments of Sharpe, we explicitly implement the Symanzik improvement program demonstrating the absence of order $a$ terms in the Symanzik improved action. We propose a general program to improve fermion operators to remove $O(a)$ corrections from their matrix elements, and demonstrate this program for the examples of matrix elements of fermion bilinears and $B_K$. We find the former does have $O(a)$ corrections while the latter does not.Comment: 16 pages, latex, 1 figur

Perturbative Corrections for Staggered Four-Fermion Operators

We present results for one-loop matching coefficients between continuum four-fermion operators, defined in the Naive Dimensional Regularization scheme, and staggered fermion operators of various types. We calculate diagrams involving gluon exchange between quark lines, and ``penguin'' diagrams containing quark loops. For the former we use Landau gauge operators, with and without $O(a)$ improvement, and including the tadpole improvement suggested by Lepage and Mackenzie.For the latter we use gauge-invariant operators. Combined with existing results for two-loop anomalous dimension matrices and one-loop matching coefficients, our results allow a lattice calculation of the amplitudes for $K\bar K$ mixing and $K\to\pi\pi$ decays with all corrections of $O(g^2)$ included. We also discuss the mixing of $\Delta S=1$ operators with lower dimension operators, and show that, with staggered fermions, only a single lower dimension operator need be removed by non-perturbative subtraction.Comment: 44 pages latex (uses psfig), 3 ps figures, all bundled using uufiles (correctly this time!), UW/PT-93-

Non-perturbative improvement and renormalization of lattice operators

The Alpha Collaboration has proposed an optimal value for c_SW in the Sheikholeslami-Wohlert action, chosen to remove O(a) effects. To measure hadronic matrix elements to the same accuracy we need a method of finding O(a) improved operators, and their renormalization constants. We determine the Z factors by a non-perturbative method, measuring the matrix elements for single quark states propagating through gauge fields in the Landau gauge. The data show large effects coming from chiral symmetry breaking. This allows us to find the improvement coefficients too, by requiring that the amount of chiral symmetry breaking agrees with that predicted by the chiral Ward identities.Comment: 3 pages, Latex, 2 figures, epsf.sty and espcrc2.sty needed. Talk given at Lattice9

Decomposition of nonlocal light-cone operators into harmonic operators of definite twist

Bilocal light-ray operators which are Lorentz scalars, vectors or antisymmetric tensors, and which appear in various hard scattering QCD processes, are decomposed into operators of definite twist. These operators are harmonic tensor functions and their Taylor expansion consists of (traceless) local light-cone operators with span irreducible representations of the Lorentz group with definite spin j and common geometric twist (= dimension - spin). Some applications concerning the nonforward matrix elements of these operators and the generalization fo conformal light-cone operators of definite twist is considered. The group theoretical background of the method has been made clear.Comment: 38 pages, AMSTEX Improvement of expressions for twist-3 and twist-4 tensor operators. to appear in Nucl. Phys.