Low-energy particle physics and chiral extrapolations

In this review I discuss the role of chiral extrapolations for the determination of several phenomenologically relevant quantities, including light quark masses, meson decay constants and the axial charge of the nucleon. In particular, I investigate whether chiral extrapolations are sufficiently controlled in order to rightfully claim the accuracy which is quoted in recent compilations of these quantities. While this is the case for the masses of the light quarks and the ratio fK/fpi of decay constants, small inconsistencies in the chiral and continuum behaviour of individual decay constants fK and fpi, as well as the hadronic radii r0, r1 remain and must be clarified. In the case of the nucleon axial charge, gA, the chiral behaviour is still poorly understood due to the presence of other systematic effects.Comment: 14 pages, plenary talk presented at the XXIX International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory - Lattice 2011 July 10-16, 2011, Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe, Californi

String Breaking in SU(2) Yang Mills Theory with Adjoint Sources

We compute the static potential in three-dimensional SU(2) Yang Mills Theory with adjoint sources using numerical simulations. By employing a variational approach involving string and gluelump operators, we obtain clear evidence for string breaking in the adjoint potential. The breaking scale r_b is computed and extrapolated to the continuum limit. The result in units of the scalar glueball mass is r_b*m_G = 10.3 +/- 1.5. We also resolve the structure of higher excitations of the flux-tube and gluelumps. Furthermore we discuss the implications of our findings for the case of the four-dimensional theory.Comment: 16 pages, 5 postscript figures, LaTe