The confined gluon: glueball spectroscopy in the full QCD vacuum

• Applicant: Dr. Stefan Schaefer
• Subject Area: Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 451886959

In a theory without quarks, glueballs are well established bound states of gluons. From experiment and also in full QCD, rather little is known about these states. The aim of this project is to make progress into clarifying the fate of the glueballs in the full theory with quarks using lattice QCD. Our aim are the masses and decay width of these states.We will make use of the ability of lattice QCD computations to get ab-initio results also at points in parameter space which are not realized in Nature. Starting in a situation with heavy quarks that is essentially the same as in pure gauge theory, we will make steps towards the quark masses found in Nature. Along this line we can track the changing properties of the glueballs, their masses and their width as the decay channels open up. With our calculations, we expect to be able to be closer to the physical situation than has been previously possible.Such a computation is very expensive in terms of computer resources. For this programme to work, we need to make use of the most advances sampling algorithms available in lattice QCD, but from some point along this path in parameter space, new algorithms will be essential for the success of the strategy. The development of such numerical strategies will be a central part of the project and we expect that these methods can also be applied to other applications beyond the one for which we are developing them here.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5269: Future methods for studying confined gluons in QCD
• International Connection: Ireland
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Michael Peardon