# Improving QCD with fermions: the 2 dimensional case

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Wilson’s lattice quark formulation has $`O(a)`$ errors, inducing systematic uncertainties when extracting continuum physics. The most efficient way for reducing these errors is the Symanzik improvement. There have been several reasonable proposals:

(a) Hamber and Wu proposed the first improved action  to remove the $`O(a)`$ error.

(b) Correspondingly, Luo, Chen, Xu, and Jiang constructed an improved Hamiltonian .

(c) For other proposals, see Refs. .

There have been troubles in the Lagrangian (action) formulation: i.e., it is extremely difficult to study $`S`$-matrix and cross sections, wave functions of vacuum, hadrons and glueballs, QCD at finite baryon density, or the computation of QCD structure functions in the region of small $`x_B`$ and $`Q^2`$.

The Hamiltonian approach is a viable alternative  and some very interesting results  have recently been obtained. Workers in Lagrangian formulation nowadays have followed similar ideas by considering anisotropic lattices to improve the spectrum computation.

The purpose of this work is to show that in the case of $`\mathrm{QCD}_2`$, the improved Hamiltonian theory proposed by Luo, Chen, Xu, and Jiang  can significantly reduce the $`O(a)`$ errors.

## 2 IMPROVED QCD WITH QUARKS

The fermionic Hamiltonian  with Wilson quarks with $`O(a)`$ errors is

$`H_f=m{\displaystyle \underset{x}{}}\overline{\psi }(x)\psi (x)`$   
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2a}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,k}{}}\overline{\psi }(x)\gamma _kU(x,k)\psi (x+k)`$   
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{r}{2a}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,k}{}}[\overline{\psi }(x)\psi (x)\overline{\psi }(x)U(x,k)\psi (x+k)],`$ (1)   
Luo, Chen, Xu and Jiang’s improved Hamiltonian  is

$`H_f^{improved}=m{\displaystyle \underset{x}{}}\overline{\psi }(x)\psi (x)+{\displaystyle \frac{r}{2a}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,k}{}}\overline{\psi }(x)\psi (x)`$   
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{b_1}{2a}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,k}{}}\overline{\psi }(x)\gamma _kU(x,k)\psi (x+k)`$   
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{b_2}{2a}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,k}{}}\overline{\psi }(x)\gamma _kU(x,2k)\psi (x+2k)`$   
$`c_1{\displaystyle \frac{r}{2a}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,k}{}}\overline{\psi }(x)U(x,k)\psi (x+k)`$   
$`c_2{\displaystyle \frac{r}{2a}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,k}{}}\overline{\psi }(x)U(x,2k)\psi (x+2k).`$ (2)   
Here $`U(x,2k)=U(x,k)U(x+k,k)`$ and $`b_1,b_2,c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ are chosen as

$`b_1={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}},b_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}},c_1={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}},c_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}`$ (3)   
to classically cancel the $`O(a)`$ error. These coefficients are the same for any d+1 dimensions and gauge group. In 1+1D, there is only color-electric energy in the gluonic sector, therefore classical improvement is sufficient.

With the absence of the $`O(ra)`$ errors, we expect that we can extract the continuum physics in a more reliable way.

## 3 PHYSICAL RESULTS

We have constructed the wave functions of vacuum and quark-antiquark vector state, and discussed the mixing problem of the operator $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ with the identity. For details, see Ref. .

Figure 1 plots $`\overline{\psi }\psi _{sub}/(gN_C)`$ as a function of $`1/g^2`$ in SU(3) gauge theory ($`N_C=3`$) for Wilson parameter $`r=0.1`$ (crosses) and $`r=1`$ (diamonds). Here $`sub`$ means the lattice data subtract the contribution of free fermions. Figure 3 plots $`aM_V/g`$ as a function of $`1/g^2`$, with $`M_V`$ being the vector mass. As one sees, the results for $`r=1`$ deviate obviously from those for $`r=0.1`$, which is attributed to the $`O(ra)`$ error of the Wilson term.

The results from the improved Hamiltonian are presented in Fig. 2, and Fig. 4. One observes that the differences between the results for $`r=1`$ and $`r=0`$ are significantly reduced. Most impressively, the data for the quark condensate coincide each other. A similar $`r`$ test has also been used by workers in Lagrangian formulation for checking the efficiency of the improvement program.

For the interest of workers outside the lattice community , we also show the results as a function of $`1/N_C^2`$ in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6.

It is worth mentioning the improved Hamiltonian formulation for pure gauge theory  proposed by Luo, Guo, Kröger, and Schütte is also giving promising results.

In conclusion, the results from the improved Hamiltonian  have much less systematic errors than those from Wilson’s. We believe that its application to QCD in 3+1 dimensions will be very encouraging.

X.Q.L. is supported by the National Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, supplemented by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, fund for international cooperation and exchange, the Ministry of Education, the Zhongshan University Administrations and Hong Kong Foundation of the Zhongshan University Advanced Research Center. We also thank the Lattice 98 organizers for additional support and assistance. H.K. would like to acknowledge support by NSERC Canada.