Direct determination of the strange and light quark condensates from full lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper presents the first direct lattice QCD calculation of the strange quark condensate, comparing it with light quark condensates, and provides precise values useful for QCD phenomenology and operator product expansion analyses.

Contribution

It introduces a novel direct method to determine the strange quark condensate from lattice QCD, including perturbative subtraction and physical scheme conversion.

Findings

Strange quark condensate: -(290(15) MeV)^3

Light quark condensate: -(283(2) MeV)^3

Strange to light condensate ratio: 1.08(16)

Abstract

We determine the strange quark condensate from lattice QCD for the first time and compare its value to that of the light quark and chiral condensates. The results come from a direct calculation of the expectation value of the trace of the quark propagator followed by subtraction of the appropriate perturbative contribution, derived here, to convert the non-normal-ordered $m\bar{\psi}\psi$ to the $\bar{MS}$ scheme at a fixed scale. This is then a well-defined physical `nonperturbative' condensate that can be used in the Operator Product Expansion of current-current correlators. The perturbative subtraction is calculated through $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$ and estimates of higher order terms are included through fitting results at multiple lattice spacing values. The gluon field configurations used are `second generation' ensembles from the MILC collaboration that include 2+1+1 flavors of sea quarks implemented with the Highly Improved Staggered Quark action and including $u/d$ sea quarks down to physical masses. Our results are : $<\bar{s}{s}>^{\bar{MS}}(2 \mathrm{GeV})= -(290(15) \mathrm{MeV})^3$, $<\bar{l}{l}>^{\bar{MS}}(2\, \mathrm{GeV})= -(283(2) \mathrm{MeV})^3$, where $l$ is a light quark with mass equal to the average of the $u$ and $d$ quarks. The strange to light quark condensate ratio is 1.08(16). The light quark condensate is significantly larger than the chiral condensate in line with expectations from chiral analyses. We discuss the implications of these results for other calculations.