Finite-volume energy spectrum of the $K^-K^-K^-$ system

TL;DR

This paper extends the relativistic three-body quantization condition to the strangeness sector and presents the first lattice QCD calculation of the excited energy levels of a three-kaon system, showing good agreement with predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel extension of the three-body quantization condition to strange systems and provides the first lattice QCD results for excited three-kaon energy levels.

Findings

Predicted excited levels match lattice results

Extended quantization condition to strangeness sector

First lattice calculation of excited three-kaon states

Abstract

The dynamics of multi-kaon systems are of relevance for several areas of nuclear physics. However, even the simplest systems, two and three kaons, are hard to prepare and study experimentally. Here we show how to extract this information using first-principle lattice QCD results. We (1) extend the relativistic three-body quantization condition to the strangeness sector, predicting for the first time the excited level finite-volume spectrum of three kaon systems at maximal isospin, and (2) present a first lattice QCD calculation of the excited levels of this system in a finite box. We compare our predictions with the lattice results reported here and with previous ground state calculations and find very good agreement.