Semi-leptonic decays of heavy mesons and the Isgur-Wise function in quenched lattice QCD

The form factors for the semi-leptonic B->D and B->D* decays are evaluated in quenched lattice QCD at two different values of the coupling, beta=6.0 and 6.2. The action and the operators are fully O(a) non-perturbatively improved. The slope of the Isgur-Wise function is evaluated, and found to be rho^2=0.83^{+15+24}_{-11-1} (quoted errors are statistical and systematic respectively). Ratios of form factors are evaluated and compared to experimental determinations.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Lattice Study of the Decay B^0-bar -> rho^+ l^- nu_l-bar: Model-Independent Determination of |V_{ub}|

We present results of a lattice computation of the vector and axial-vector current matrix elements relevant for the semileptonic decay B^0-bar -> rho^+ l^- nu_l-bar. The computations are performed in the quenched approximation of lattice QCD on a 24^3 x 48 lattice at beta = 6.2, using an O(a) improved fermionic action. Our principal result is for the differential decay rate, dGamma/dq^2, for the decay B^0-bar -> rho^+ l^- nu_l-bar in a region beyond the charm threshold, allowing a model-independent extraction of |V_{ub}| from experimental measurements. Heavy quark symmetry relations between radiative and semileptonic decays of B-bar mesons into light vector mesons are also discussed.Comment: 22 pages LaTeX-209 (dependent on settings in a4.sty), 23 PostScript figures included with epsf.sty. Complete PostScript file including figures available at http://wwwhep.phys.soton.ac.uk/hepwww/papers/shep9518

The spectrum of D_s mesons from lattice QCD

The spectrum of orbitally excited $D_s$ mesons is computed in the continuum limit of quenched lattice QCD. The results are consistent with the interpretation that the narrow resonance in the $D_s \pi^0$ channel discovered by the BABAR Collaboration is a $J^P=0^+$ $c\bar{s}$ meson. Furthermore, within statistical errors, the $1^+-1^-$ and the $0^+-0^-$ mass splittings are equal, in agreement with the chiral multiplet structure predicted by heavy hadron chiral effective theory. On our coarsest lattice we present results from the first study of orbitally excited $D_s$ mesons with two flavors of dynamical quarks, with mass slightly larger than the strange quark mass. These results are consistent with the quenched data.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Chiral Extrapolation of Lattice Data for Heavy Baryons

The masses of heavy baryons containing a b quark have been calculated numerically in lattice QCD with pion masses which are much larger than its physical value. In the present work we extrapolate these lattice data to the physical mass of the pion by applying the effective chiral Lagrangian for heavy baryons, which is invariant under chiral symmetry when the light quark masses go to zero and heavy quark symmetry when the heavy quark masses go to infinity. A phenomenological functional form with three parameters, which has the correct behavior in the chiral limit and appropriate behavior when the pion mass is large, is proposed to extrapolate the lattice data. It is found that the extrapolation deviates noticably from the naive linear extrapolation when the pion mass is smaller than about 500MeV. The mass differences between Sigma_b and Sigma_b^* and between Sigma_b^{(*)} and Lambda_b are also presented. Uncertainties arising from both lattice data and our model parameters are discussed in detail. We also give a comparision of the results in our model with those obtained in the naive linear extrapolations.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figure

1/N_c- expansion of the quark condensate at finite temperature

Previously the quark and meson properties in a many quark system at finite temperature have been studied within effective QCD approaches in the Hartree approximation. In the present paper we consider the influence of the mesonic correlations on the quark self-energy and on the quark propagator within a systematic $1/N_c$- expansion. Using a general separable ansatz for the nonlocal interaction, we derive a selfconsistent equation for the $1/N_c$ correction to the quark propagator. For a separable model with cut-off formfactor, we obtain a decrease of the condensate of the order of 20\% at zero temperature. A lowering the critical temperature for the onset of the chiral restoration transition due to the inclusion of mesonic correlations is obtained what seems to be closer to the results from lattice calculations.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX, 5 figure

Chiral Analysis of Quenched Baryon Masses

We extend to quenched QCD an earlier investigation of the chiral structure of the masses of the nucleon and the delta in lattice simulations of full QCD. Even after including the meson-loop self-energies which give rise to the leading and next-to-leading non-analytic behaviour (and hence the most rapid variation in the region of light quark mass), we find surprisingly little curvature in the quenched case. Replacing these meson-loop self-energies by the corresponding terms in full QCD yields a remarkable level of agreement with the results of the full QCD simulations. This comparison leads to a very good understanding of the origins of the mass splitting between these baryons.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

Effective chiral lagrangian in the chiral limit from the instanton vacuum

We study the effective chiral Lagrangian in the chiral limit from the instanton vacuum. Starting from the nonlocal effective chiral action, we derive the effective chiral Lagrangian, using the derivative expansion to order $O(p^4)$ in the chiral limit. The low energy constants, $L_1$, $L_2$, and $L_3$ are determined and compared with various models and the corresponding empirical data. The results are in a good agreement with the data. We also discuss about the upper limit of the sigma meson, based on the present results.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.

Excited Baryons in Lattice QCD

We present first results for the masses of positive and negative parity excited baryons calculated in lattice QCD using an O(a^2)-improved gluon action and a fat-link irrelevant clover (FLIC) fermion action in which only the irrelevant operators are constructed with APE-smeared links. The results are in agreement with earlier calculations of N^* resonances using improved actions and exhibit a clear mass splitting between the nucleon and its chiral partner. An correlation matrix analysis reveals two low-lying J^P=(1/2)^- states with a small mass splitting. The study of different Lambda interpolating fields suggests a similar splitting between the lowest two Lambda1/2^- octet states. However, the empirical mass suppression of the Lambda^*(1405) is not evident in these quenched QCD simulations, suggesting a potentially important role for the meson cloud of the Lambda^*(1405) and/or a need for more exotic interpolating fields.Comment: Correlation matrix analysis performed. Increased to 400 configurations. 22 pages, 13 figures, 15 table