# DESY 98-123hep-lat/9809002 Scaling tests in "O"⁢(𝑎)–improved quenched lattice QCDTalk given at the International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 13–18, 1998, in Boulder, USA.

## 1 Introduction

Discretization errors of $`\text{O}(a)`$ in lattice QCD can be removed via a systematic approach based on the Symanzik improvement programme , which adds appropriate higher-dimensional operators to action and fields of interest . Exploiting chiral symmetry restoration and certain current Ward identities on the lattice, a (mostly) non-perturbative $`\text{O}(a)`$–improvement for action and quark currents as well as their renormalization has been achieved in the quenched case within this framework .

Thus one is not only interested in the influence of improvement on agreement of lattice data with experiment at fixed $`\beta `$–values, but also in the quality of scaling and the size of its violation. In this context it was reported  that at $`a0.1\text{fm}`$ the residual $`\text{O}(a^2)`$ lattice artifacts may be fairly large e.g. for $`f_Kr_0`$ ($``$ 10 %), while they are already very small for other quantities like $`m_\rho /\sqrt{\sigma }`$ ($``$ 2 %). Restricting to an intermediate volume, we therefore examined the impact of $`\text{O}(a)`$–improvement thoroughly and with high accuracy for different observables.

## 2 Fermionic correlation functions

Consider correlation functions in the Schrödinger functional (SF)  with all details found in . We use $`\zeta (\overline{\zeta })`$ as $`x_0=0`$ boundary (anti-)quark fields in $`𝒪^a=a^6_{\text{u},\text{v}}\overline{\zeta }(\text{u})\gamma _5\frac{\tau ^a}{2}\zeta (\text{v})`$ and $`𝒬_k^a=a^6_{\text{u},\text{v}}\overline{\zeta }(\text{u})\gamma _k\frac{\tau ^a}{2}\zeta (\text{v})`$, and axial (vector) current $`A_\mu ^a(V_\mu ^a)`$ and pseudoscalar (tensor) density $`P^a(T_{\mu \nu }^a)`$ to form the expectation values

$`f_\text{A}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}A_0^a(x)𝒪^a`$ (1a)   
$`f_\text{P}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}P^a(x)𝒪^a`$ (1b)   
$`f_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3L^6}}𝒪^a𝒪^a`$ (1c)   
$`k_\text{V}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}V_k^a(x)𝒬_k^a`$ (1d)   
$`k_\text{T}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}T_{k0}^a(x)𝒬_k^a.`$ (1e)   
Given the improvement coefficients $`c_\text{A}`$ and $`c_\text{V}`$, the improved currents $`(A_\text{I})_\mu ^aA_\mu ^a+ac_\text{A}\stackrel{~}{}_\mu P^a`$ and $`(V_\text{I})_\mu ^aV_\mu ^a+ac_\text{V}\stackrel{~}{}_\nu T_{\mu \nu }^a`$ lead to define the corresponding fermionic correlation functions

$`f_\text{A}^\text{I}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`f_\text{A}(x_0)+ac_\text{A}\stackrel{~}{}_0f_\text{P}(x_0)`$ (2a)   
$`k_\text{V}^\text{I}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`k_\text{V}(x_0)+ac_\text{V}\stackrel{~}{}_0k_\text{T}(x_0),`$ (2b)   
where the symmetrized lattice derivative acts as usual as $`\stackrel{~}{}_\mu f(x)=[f(x+a\widehat{\mu })f(xa\widehat{\mu })]/2a`$.

## 3 Observables under study and results

Employing a mass-independent renormalization respecting $`\text{O}(a)`$–improvement, the quantities

$`(A_\text{R})_\mu ^a`$ $`=`$ $`Z_\text{A}(1+b_\text{A}am_\text{q})(A_\text{I})_\mu ^a`$ (3a)   
$`(V_\text{R})_\mu ^a`$ $`=`$ $`Z_\text{V}(1+b_\text{V}am_\text{q})(V_\text{I})_\mu ^a`$ (3b)   
$`P_\text{R}^a`$ $`=`$ $`Z_\text{P}(1+b_\text{P}am_\text{q})P^a`$ (3c)   
induce the renormalized correlation functions

$`f_\text{A}^\text{R}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`Z_\text{A}(1+b_\text{A}am_\text{q})f_\text{A}^\text{I}(x_0)`$ (4a)   
$`k_\text{V}^\text{R}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`Z_\text{V}(1+b_\text{V}am_\text{q})k_\text{V}^\text{I}(x_0)`$ (4b)   
with $`Z_\text{X}`$ and $`b_\text{X}`$, X=A,V,P, which are *not* functions of the quark mass $`am_\text{q}=(1/\kappa 1/\kappa _\text{c})/2`$. Now we construct the following set of observables:

$`m(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{}_0f_\text{A}(x_0)+ac_\text{A}\stackrel{~}{}_0^2f_\text{P}(x_0)}{2f_\text{P}(x_0)}}`$ (5)   
$`m_{\text{PS}}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{}_0f_\text{P}(x_0)}{f_\text{P}(x_0)}},m_\pi =m_{\text{PS}}(\frac{T}{2})`$ (6)   
$`m_\text{V}(x_0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{}_0k_\text{V}^\text{I}(x_0)}{k_\text{V}^\text{I}(x_0)}},m_\rho =m_\text{V}(\frac{T}{2})`$ (7)   
$`af_{\text{PS}}(x_0)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f_\text{A}^\text{R}(x_0)}{\sqrt{f_1}}},f_\pi =f_{\text{PS}}(\frac{T}{2})`$ (8)   
$`f_\text{V}^1(x_0)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k_\text{V}^\text{R}(x_0)}{\sqrt{f_1}}},f_\rho ^1=f_\text{V}^1(\frac{T}{2}).`$ (9)   
The division by $`\sqrt{f_1}`$ cancels the renormalizations of the boundary quark fields ensuring that $`f_\pi `$,$`f_\rho `$ are scaling quantities, and the proportionality constants in eqs. (8),(9) are such that these ratios turn, as $`T\mathrm{}`$, into the familiar matrix elements, which define the $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$ meson decay constants. The renormalized PCAC (current) quark mass in the SF scheme is obtained as 

$$\overline{m}=\frac{Z_\text{A}}{Z_\text{P}}m_{\text{PCAC}},m_{\text{PCAC}}=m(x_0)|_{x_0=\frac{T}{2}},$$
(10)   
where $`(b_\text{A}b_\text{P})am_\text{q}`$ may be neglected .

For the analysis we use $`c_{\text{sw}}`$, $`c_\text{X}`$ and $`Z_\text{X}`$ non-perturbatively determined in  for $`\beta 6.0`$, while $`b_\text{A}`$, $`b_\text{V}`$ and $`b_\text{P}`$, as well as the SF specific improvement coefficients of the boundary counterterms $`c_\text{t}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{c}_\text{t}`$, are taken from 1–loop perturbation theory .

The strategy was then to keep a finite physical volume and the quark mass fixed by prescribing the geometry $`T/L=2`$, ‘pion’ mass $`m_\pi L=2.0`$ and spatial lattice size $`L/r_0=1.49`$ using the recent results on the hadronic scale $`r_0/a`$ , see table 1.

This yields an intermediate volume of $`(0.75^3\times 1.5)\text{fm}^4`$, moving on a line of constant physics (LCP) in parameter space with lattice resolutions ranging from 0.1 to 0.05 fm. As an important prerequisite for the reliability of the scaling test we verified by variation of the 1–loop values as simulation input that the dependence on $`c_\text{t},\stackrel{~}{c}_\text{t}`$ is small enough to be neglected. The leading scaling violations should therefore be $`\text{O}(a^2)`$. Any small mismatch with the renormalization conditions on $`m_\pi L`$ and $`L/r_0`$ was corrected by an estimation of the corresponding slopes. Finally, we performed extrapolations to the continuum limit, assuming convergence with a rate $`a^2`$.

The fits are displayed in figures 14, where the total error is always dominated by the uncertainties of the renormalization factors $`Z_\text{X}`$. One observes the leading corrections to the continuum to be compatible with $`\text{O}(a^2)`$. Moreover, it can be inferred from table 2 that the difference of the continuum limits from the values at $`\beta =6.0`$ ($`a0.1\text{fm}`$) is below 5 % in the improved theory. The only exception is the inverse ‘rho’ meson decay constant, whose slope is quite large; for that reason we discard the $`\beta =6.0`$ point to extrapolate to the continuum limit.

## 4 Discussion and outlook

Our numerical simulations of renormalized and improved correlation functions show an overall behaviour completely consistent with being linear in $`a^2`$ at $`\beta 6.0`$ for all quantities under consideration. Changing $`a`$ by a factor 2 gives very stable continuum extrapolations.

But the residual $`\text{O}(a^2)`$–effect in $`1/f_\rho `$ is still large at $`a0.1\text{fm}`$ ($``$ 30 %). Here we find that artificially setting $`c_\text{V}=0`$ results in data with an overall weaker dependence on $`a`$. However, as indicated in figure 4, for such a $`c_\text{V}`$–value the functional form of the $`a`$–effects seems no longer compatible with $`a^2`$. Additionally, a chiral Ward identity is badly violated for $`c_\text{V}=0`$ at $`\text{O}(a)`$–level . Thus there is no choice of $`c_\text{V}`$, which makes $`\text{O}(a^2)`$–effects small in both channels. This example clearly illustrates that even in the $`\text{O}(a)`$–improved theory the remaining $`\text{O}(a^2)`$–effects have to be assessed by varying the lattice spacing.

This work is part of the ALPHA collaboration research programme. We thank DESY for allocating computer time to this project.