B_s Mesons using Staggered Light Quarks

Last year we proposed using staggered fermions as the light quarks, combined with nonrelativistic heavy quarks, in simulations of heavy-light mesons. A first round of tests which focuses on the B_s meson has been completed using quenched lattices, and results are presented here for the kinetic B_s mass, the B_s^* - B_s splitting, and f_{B_s}. The next project, already underway, is to compute the B and B_s decay constants and spectra on the n_f = 2+1 and 3 MILC lattices. We report on progress with one set of these configurations.Comment: Talk presented by M.W. at Lattice2002(heavyquark

Perturbative Wilson loops from unquenched Monte Carlo simulations at weak couplings

Perturbative expansions of several small Wilson loops are computed through next-to-next-to-leading order in unquenched lattice QCD, from Monte Carlo simulations at weak couplings. This approach provides a much simpler alternative to conventional diagrammatic perturbation theory, and is applied here for the first time to full QCD. Two different sets of lattice actions are considered: one set uses the unimproved plaquette gluon action together with the unimproved staggered-quark action; the other set uses the one-loop-improved Symanzik gauge-field action together with the so-called ``asqtad'' improved-staggered quark action. Simulations are also done with different numbers of dynamical fermions. An extensive study of the systematic uncertainties is presented, which demonstrates that the small third-order perturbative component of the observables can be reliably extracted from simulation data. We also investigate the use of the rational hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm for unquenched simulations with unimproved-staggered fermions. Our results are in excellent agreement with diagrammatic perturbation theory, and provide an important cross-check of the perturbation theory input to a recent determination of the strong coupling $\alpha_{\bar{\rm MS}}(M_Z)$ by the HPQCD collaboration.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Highly Improved Staggered Quarks on the Lattice, with Applications to Charm Physics

We use perturbative Symanzik improvement to create a new staggered-quark action (HISQ) that has greatly reduced one-loop taste-exchange errors, no tree-level order a^2 errors, and no tree-level order (am)^4 errors to leading order in the quark's velocity v/c. We demonstrate with simulations that the resulting action has taste-exchange interactions that are at least 3--4 times smaller than the widely used ASQTAD action. We show how to estimate errors due to taste exchange by comparing ASQTAD and HISQ simulations, and demonstrate with simulations that such errors are no more than 1% when HISQ is used for light quarks at lattice spacings of 1/10 fm or less. The suppression of (am)^4 errors also makes HISQ the most accurate discretization currently available for simulating c quarks. We demonstrate this in a new analysis of the psi-eta_c mass splitting using the HISQ action on lattices where a m_c=0.43 and 0.66, with full-QCD gluon configurations (from MILC). We obtain a result of~111(5) MeV which compares well with experiment. We discuss applications of this formalism to D physics and present our first high-precision results for D_s mesons.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, 5 table

Unquenching effects on the coefficients of the L\"uscher-Weisz action

The effects of unquenching on the perturbative improvement coefficients in the Symanzik action are computed within the framework of L\"uscher-Weisz on-shell improvement. We find that the effects of quark loops are surprisingly large, and their omission may well explain the scaling violations observed in some unquenched studies.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, uses revtex4; version to appear in Phys.Rev.

Perturbative expansions from Monte Carlo simulations at weak coupling: Wilson loops and the static-quark self-energy

Perturbative coefficients for Wilson loops and the static-quark self-energy are extracted from Monte Carlo simulations at weak coupling. The lattice volumes and couplings are chosen to ensure that the lattice momenta are all perturbative. Twisted boundary conditions are used to eliminate the effects of lattice zero modes and to suppress nonperturbative finite-volume effects due to Z(3) phases. Simulations of the Wilson gluon action are done with both periodic and twisted boundary conditions, and over a wide range of lattice volumes (from $3^4$ to $16^4$) and couplings (from $\beta \approx 9$ to $\beta \approx 60$). A high precision comparison is made between the simulation data and results from finite-volume lattice perturbation theory. The Monte Carlo results are shown to be in excellent agreement with perturbation theory through second order. New results for third-order coefficients for a number of Wilson loops and the static-quark self-energy are reported.Comment: 36 pages, 15 figures, REVTEX documen

Update: Accurate Determinations of alpha_s from Realistic Lattice QCD

We use lattice QCD simulations, with MILC configurations (including vacuum polarization from u, d, and s quarks), to update our previous determinations of the QCD coupling constant. Our new analysis uses results from 6 different lattice spacings and 12 different combinations of sea-quark masses to significantly reduce our previous errors. We also correct for finite-lattice-spacing errors in the scale setting, and for nonperturbative chiral corrections to the 22 short-distance quantities from which we extract the coupling. Our final result is alpha_V(7.5GeV,nf=3) = 0.2120(28), which is equivalent to alpha_msbar(M_Z,n_f=5)= 0.1183(8). We compare this with our previous result, which differs by one standard deviation.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, 4 table

B Physics on the Lattice: Present and Future

Recent experimental measurements and lattice QCD calculations are now reaching the precision (and accuracy) needed to over-constrain the CKM parameters $\bar\rho$ and $\bar\eta$. In this brief review, I discuss the current status of lattice QCD calculations needed to connect the experimental measurements of $B$ meson properties to quark flavor-changing parameters. Special attention is given to $B\to\pi\ell\nu$, which is becoming a competitive way to determine $|V_{ub}|$, and to $B^0-\bar{B^0}$ mixings, which now include reliable extrapolation to the physical light quark mass. The combination of the recent measurement of the $B_s$ mass difference and current lattice calculations dramatically reduces the uncertainty in $|V_{td}|$. I present an outlook for reducing dominant lattice QCD uncertainties entering CKM fits, and I remark on lattice calculations for other decay channels.Comment: Invited brief review for Mod. Phys. Lett. A. 15 pages. v2: typos corrected, references adde