Leading hadronic contribution to the muon magnetic moment from lattice QCD

The standard model of particle physics describes the vast majority of experiments and observations involving elementary particles. Any deviation from its predictions would be a sign of new, fundamental physics. One long-standing discrepancy concerns the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, a measure of the magnetic field surrounding that particle. Standard-model predictions¹ exhibit disagreement with measurements² that is tightly scattered around 3.7 standard deviations. Today, theoretical and measurement errors are comparable; however, ongoing and planned experiments aim to reduce the measurement error by a factor of four. Theoretically, the dominant source of error is the leading-order hadronic vacuum polarization (LO-HVP) contribution. For the upcoming measurements, it is essential to evaluate the prediction for this contribution with independent methods and to reduce its uncertainties. The most precise, model-independent determinations so far rely on dispersive techniques, combined with measurements of the cross-section of electron-positron annihilation into hadrons^3-6. To eliminate our reliance on these experiments, here we use ab initio quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and quantum electrodynamics simulations to compute the LO-HVP contribution. We reach sufficient precision to discriminate between the measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon and the predictions of dispersive methods. Our result favours the experimentally measured value over those obtained using the dispersion relation. Moreover, the methods used and developed in this work will enable further increased precision as more powerful computers become available.

Up and Down Quark Masses and Corrections to Dashen's Theorem from Lattice QCD and Quenched QED

In a previous Letter [Borsanyi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 252001 (2013)] we determined the isospin mass splittings of the baryon octet from a lattice calculation based on N_{f}=2+1 QCD simulations to which QED effects have been added in a partially quenched setup. Using the same data we determine here the corrections to Dashen's theorem and the individual up and down quark masses. Our ensembles include 5 lattice spacings down to 0.054 fm, lattice sizes up to 6 fm, and average up-down quark masses all the way down to their physical value. For the parameter which quantifies violations to Dashen's theorem, we obtain ϵ=0.73(2)(5)(17), where the first error is statistical, the second is systematic, and the third is an estimate of the QED quenching error. For the light quark masses we obtain, m_{u}=2.27(6)(5)(4) and m_{d}=4.67(6)(5)(4)  MeV in the modified minimal subtraction scheme at 2  GeV and the isospin breaking ratios m_{u}/m_{d}=0.485(11)(8)(14), R=38.2(1.1)(0.8)(1.4), and Q=23.4(0.4)(0.3)(0.4). Our results exclude the m_{u}=0 solution to the strong CP problem by more than 24 standard deviations.

Lattice Computation of the Nucleon Scalar Quark Contents at the Physical Point

We present a QCD calculation of the u, d, and s scalar quark contents of nucleons based on 47 lattice ensembles with N_{f}=2+1 dynamical sea quarks, 5 lattice spacings down to 0.054 fm, lattice sizes up to 6 fm, and pion masses down to 120 MeV. Using the Feynman-Hellmann theorem, we obtain f_{ud}^{N}=0.0405(40)(35) and f_{s}^{N}=0.113(45)(40), which translates into σ_{πN}=38(3)(3)  MeV, σ_{sN}=105(41)(37)  MeV, and y_{N}=0.20(8)(8) for the sigma terms and the related ratio, where the first errors are statistical and the second errors are systematic. Using isospin relations, we also compute the individual up and down quark contents of the proton and neutron (results in the main text).