Determination of c and b quark masses

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in lattice QCD techniques for accurately determining charm and bottom quark masses, connecting heavy and light quark sectors and testing QCD consistency.

Contribution

It introduces new lattice QCD methods with improved actions and sea quark configurations for heavy quarks, enabling precise mass ratios and cross-method comparisons.

Findings

Accurate determination of c and b quark masses using lattice QCD.

First-time connection of heavy and light quark sectors through mass ratios.

Validation of QCD through cross-method mass comparisons.

Abstract

The determination of quark masses has been transformed in the past few years by accurate results from realistic lattice QCD. This has meant a range of new methods for both b and c quarks which I will describe along with results from continuum techniques. The recent improvement in Lattice QCD actions along with the generation of gluon configurations including sea quarks on fine lattices has given us viable methods for handling heavy quarks with relativistic actions. This has allowed us for the first time to connect the heavy and light sectors through accurate determination of ratios of quark masses, such as m_c/m_s. Such ratios enable us to leverage the accuracy of c and b mass determinations into accurate s and light quark masses. The comparison of quark masses from different methods and formalisms provides a strong test of QCD and the masses themselves are needed in calculations for the cross-sections of various processes at LHC, for example H to bb.