B-meson to light-meson transition form factors
We report a comprehensive set of results for B-meson heavy-to-light transition form factors calculated using a truncation of, and expression for, the transition amplitudes in which all elements are motivated by the study of Dyson-Schwinger equations in QCD. In this relativistic approach, which realizes confinement and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, all physical values of momentum transfer in the transition form factors are simultaneously accessible. Our results can be useful in the analysis and correlation of the large body of data being accumulated at extant facilities, and thereby in probing the standard model and beyond.
Process-independent strong running coupling
We unify two widely different approaches to understanding the infrared behaviour of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), one essentially phenomenological, based on data, and the other computational, realised via quantum field equations in the continuum theory. Using the latter, we explain and calculate a process-independent running-coupling for QCD, a new type of effective charge that is an analogue of the Gell-Mann--Low effective coupling in quantum electrodynamics. The result is almost identical to the process-dependent effective charge defined via the Bjorken sum rule, which provides one of the most basic constraints on our knowledge of nucleon spin structure. This reveals the Bjorken sum to be…
Spectrum of fully-heavy tetraquarks from a diquark+antidiquark perspective
Using a relativized diquark model Hamiltonian, we calculate the masses of $J^{PC}=0^{++}$ ground-state tetraquarks in the following systems: $b s \bar b \bar s$, $bb \bar n \bar n$ ($n=u, d$), $bb \bar s \bar s$, $cc\bar c \bar c$, $b b \bar b \bar b$, $b c\bar b \bar c$ and $b b \bar c \bar c$. We also compute extensive spectra for the fully-heavy quark flavour combinations. Finally, as a test of the diquark model approach, we compute the masses of fully-heavy baryons in the diquark model. Our results may be compared soon to the forthcoming experimental data for fully-heavy three-quark systems.
Natural constraints on the gluon-quark vertex
In principle, the strong-interaction sector of the Standard Model is characterised by a unique renormalisation-group-invariant (RGI) running interaction and a unique form for the dressed--gluon-quark vertex, $\Gamma_\mu$; but, whilst much has been learnt about the former, the latter is still obscure. In order to improve this situation, we use a RGI running-interaction that reconciles both top-down and bottom-up analyses of the gauge sector in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) to compute dressed-quark gap equation solutions with 1,660,000 distinct Ansaetze for $\Gamma_\mu$. Each one of the solutions is then tested for compatibility with three physical criteria and, remarkably, we find that merely…
Distribution Amplitudes of Heavy-Light Mesons
A symmetry-preserving approach to the continuum bound-state problem in quantum field theory is used to calculate the masses, leptonic decay constants and light-front distribution amplitudes of empirically accessible heavy-light mesons. The inverse moment of the $B$-meson distribution is particularly important in treatments of exclusive $B$-decays using effective field theory and the factorisation formalism; and its value is therefore computed: $\lambda_B(\zeta = 2\,{\rm GeV}) = 0.54(3)\,$GeV. As an example and in anticipation of precision measurements at new-generation $B$-factories, the branching fraction for the rare $B\to \gamma(E_\gamma) \ell \nu_\ell$ radiative decay is also calculated…
Bridging a gap between continuum-QCD and ab initio predictions of hadron observables
Within contemporary hadron physics there are two common methods for determining the momentum-dependence of the interaction between quarks: the top-down approach, which works toward an ab initio computation of the interaction via direct analysis of the gauge-sector gap equations; and the bottom-up scheme, which aims to infer the interaction by fitting data within a well-defined truncation of those equations in the matter sector that are relevant to bound-state properties. We unite these two approaches by demonstrating that the renormalisation-group-invariant running-interaction predicted by contemporary analyses of QCD's gauge sector coincides with that required in order to describe ground-s…
Diquark correlations in hadron physics: Origin, impact and evidence
The last decade has seen a marked shift in how the internal structure of hadrons is understood. Modern experimental facilities, new theoretical techniques for the continuum bound-state problem and progress with lattice-regularised QCD have provided strong indications that soft quark+quark (diquark) correlations play a crucial role in hadron physics. For example, theory indicates that the appearance of such correlations is a necessary consequence of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, viz. a corollary of emergent hadronic mass that is responsible for almost all visible mass in the universe; experiment has uncovered signals for such correlations in the flavour-separation of the proton's elect…
Effective charge from lattice QCD
Using lattice configurations for quantum chromodynamics (QCD) generated with three domain-wall fermions at a physical pion mass, we obtain a parameter-free prediction of QCD's renormalisation-group-invariant process-independent effective charge, $\hat\alpha(k^2)$. Owing to the dynamical breaking of scale invariance, evident in the emergence of a gluon mass-scale, this coupling saturates at infrared momenta: $\hat\alpha(0)/\pi=0.97(4)$. Amongst other things: $\hat\alpha(k^2)$ is almost identical to the process-dependent (PD) effective charge defined via the Bjorken sum rule; and also that PD charge which, employed in the one-loop evolution equations, delivers agreement between pion parton di…