Strange quarks and lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in lattice QCD calculations of strange quark form factors, highlighting improved agreement with experiments, new insights into the strange scalar form factor affecting dark matter detection, and renewed interest in the H-dibaryon.

Contribution

It summarizes recent progress in lattice QCD related to strange form factors, scalar form factors, and the H-dibaryon, emphasizing new techniques and their implications.

Findings

Improved agreement between theory and experiment for strange vector form factors.

New lattice calculations suggest smaller strange scalar form factors, impacting dark matter detection.

Recent studies indicate the H-dibaryon may be only slightly unbound.

Abstract

The last few years have seen a dramatic improvement in our knowledge of the strange form factors of the nucleon. With regard to the vector from factors the level of agreement between theory and experiment gives us considerable confidence in our ability to calculate with non-perturbative QCD. The calculation of the strange scalar form factor has moved significantly in the last two years, with the application of new techniques which yield values considerably smaller than believed for the past 20 years. These new values turn out to have important consequences for the detection of neutralinos, a favourite dark matter candidate. Finally, very recent lattice studies have resurrected interest in the famed H-dibaryon, with modern chiral extrapolation of lattice data suggesting that it may be only slightly unbound. We review some of the major sources of uncertainty in that chiral extrapolation.