The functional role of contrast adaptation

Prolonged inspection of high contrast sinewave gratings increases the contrast required to detect gratings having a similar spatial frequency and orientation. The functional role of such adaptation has, however, in the past, eluded disclosure. We here show that 5 min adaptation to a 2 c/deg sinewave grating of 0.8 contrast changes the observer's ability to discriminate the contrast level of a subsequently presented grating of the same spatial frequency and orientation. Similar to the threshold elevation effect, the observers required more incremental contrast for background contrast levels between 0.1 and 0.4 following adaptation. However, for contrast levels above 0.5, the observers required less delta contrast, following adaptation, to correctly discriminate which of two gratings was incremented in contrast. A simple model for adaptation is proposed to account for the findings which is based on a shift in the semi-saturation constant of the detector's contrast-response function. According to this model, adaptation acts to linearize the underlying mechanism's response in the region near the prevailing contrast level

Perturbative and non-perturbative studies of the SU(2)-Higgs model on lattices with asymmetric lattice spacings

We present a calculation of the O(g^2,\lambda) perturbative corrections to the coupling anisotropies of the SU(2)-Higgs model on lattices with asymmetric lattice spacings. These corrections are obtained by a one-loop calculation requiring the rotational invariance of the gauge and Higgs boson propagators in the continuum limit. The coupling anisotropies are also determined from numerical simulations of the model on appropriate lattices. The one-loop perturbation theory and the simulation results agree with high accuracy. It is demonstrated that rotational invariance is also restored for the static potential determined from space-space and space-time Wilson loops.Comment: 27pages, Latex, 7 figures (7 eps, 3 ps files), correction of misprint

Effective heavy-light meson energies in small-volume quenched QCD

We study effective energies of heavy-light meson correlation functions in lattice QCD and a small volume of (0.2 fm)^4 to non-perturbatively calculate their dependence on the heavy quark mass in the continuum limit. Our quenched results obtained here constitute an essential intermediate step of a first fully non-perturbative computation of the b-quark's mass in the static approximation that has recently been presented as an application of a new proposal to non-perturbatively renormalize the Heavy Quark Effective Theory. The renormalization constant and the improvement coefficients relating the renormalized current and subtracted quark mass are determined in the relevant parameter region at weak couplings, which allows to perform the numerical simulations at several, precisely fixed values of the renormalization group invariant heavy quark mass in a range from 3 GeV to 15 GeV.Comment: 24 pages including figures and tables, latex2e; version published in JHEP, small additions, results unchange

A precise determination of BKB_K in quenched QCD

The $B_K$ parameter is computed in quenched lattice QCD with Wilson twisted mass fermions. Two variants of tmQCD are used; in both of them the relevant $\Delta S = 2$ four-fermion operator is renormalised multiplicatively. The renormalisation adopted is non-perturbative, with a Schroedinger functional renormalisation condition. Renormalisation group running is also non-perturbative, up to very high energy scales. In one of the two tmQCD frameworks the computations have been performed at the physical $K$-meson mass, thus eliminating the need of mass extrapolations. Simulations have been performed at several lattice spacings and the continuum limit was reached by combining results from both tmQCD regularisations. Finite volume effects have been partially checked and turned out to be small. Exploratory studies have also been performed with non-degenerate valence flavours. The final result for the RGI bag parameter, with all sources of uncertainty (except quenching) under control, is $\hat B_K =0.789 \pm 0.046$.Comment: 54 pages, 11 figure

Flavour symmetry restoration and kaon weak matrix elements in quenched twisted mass QCD

We simulate two variants of quenched twisted mass QCD (tmQCD), with degenerate Wilson quarks of masses equal to or heavier than half the strange quark mass. We use Ward identities in order to measure the twist angles of the theory and thus check the quality of the tuning of mass parameters to a physics condition which stays constant as the lattice spacing is varied. Flavour symmetry breaking in tmQCD is studied in a framework of two fully twisted and two standard Wilson quark flavours, tuned to be degenerate in the continuum. Comparing pseudoscalar masses, obtained from connected quark diagrams made of tmQCD and/or standard Wilson quark propagators, we confirm that flavour symmetry breaking effects, which are at most 5%, decrease as we approach the continuum limit. We also compute the pseudoscalar decay constant in the continuum limit, with reduced systematics. As a consequence of improved tuning of the mass parameters at $\beta = 6.1$, we reanalyse our previous $B_K$ results. Our main phenomenological findings are $r_0 f_K = 0.421(7)$ and $\hat B_K = 0.735(71)$.Comment: 41 pages, figures included, one reference added. Final version as accepted for publication on Nucl.Phys.

Non-perturbative Heavy Quark Effective Theory

We explain how to perform non-perturbative computations in HQET on the lattice. In particular the problem of the subtraction of power-law divergences is solved by a non-perturbative matching of HQET and QCD. As examples, we present a full calculation of the mass of the b-quark in the combined static and quenched approximation and outline an alternative way to obtain the B-meson decay constant at lowest order. Since no excessively large lattices are required, our strategy can also be applied including dynamical fermions.Comment: 27 pages including figures and tables, latex2e; version published in JHEP, typos corrected and 1 reference adde

Where does the hot electroweak phase transition end?

We give the nonperturbative phase diagram of the four-dimensional hot electroweak phase transition. A systematic extrapolation $a \to 0$ is done. Our results show that the finite temperature SU(2)-Higgs phase transition is of first order for Higgs-boson masses $m_H<66.5 \pm 1.4$ GeV. The full four-dimensional result agrees completely with that of the dimensional reduction approximation. This fact is of particular importance, because it indicates that the fermionic sector of the Standard Model (SM) can be included perturbatively. We obtain that the Higgs-boson endpoint mass in the SM is $72.4 \pm 1.7$ GeV. Taking into account the LEP Higgs-boson mass lower bound excludes any electroweak phase transition in the SM.Comment: LATTICE98(electroweak), presented by Z. Fodor. Latex, 3 pages, 3 figu res. Comment line change

Lattice QCD with light dynamical quarks

We report on the simulation of QCD with light dynamical quarks using the two-step multi-boson (TSMB) algorithm. In an exploratory study with two flavours of quarks at lattice spacing about 0.27 fm and with quark mass down to one sixth of the strange quark mass eigenvalue spectra and autocorrelations have been studied. Here we present results on the volume dependence as well as tests of possible algorithmic improvements.Comment: 6 pages, Lattice2002(spectrum