Nuclear correlation functions in lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper introduces efficient methods for calculating complex nuclear correlation functions in lattice QCD, enabling the study of light nuclei with manageable computational effort.

Contribution

It presents a constructive and a determinant-based approach to perform Wick contractions more efficiently for multi-baryon states in lattice QCD.

Findings

Methods successfully compute correlation functions for light nuclei.

Approaches reduce computational complexity for certain interpolating operators.

Examples include nuclei like He, Be, C, O, and Si.

Abstract

We consider the problem of calculating the large number of Wick contractions necessary to compute states with the quantum numbers of many baryons in lattice QCD. We consider a constructive approach and a determinant-based approach and show that these methods allow the required contractions to be performed in computationally manageable amount of time for certain choices of interpolating operators. Examples of correlation functions computed using these techniques are shown for the quantum numbers of the light nuclei, He, Be, C, O and Si.