Correlated Dirac Eigenvalues and Axial Anomaly in Chiral Symmetric QCD

TL;DR

This study establishes new relations between derivatives of the Dirac eigenvalue spectrum and eigenvalue correlations, using lattice QCD to explore the axial anomaly's persistence in the chiral limit at finite temperature.

Contribution

It introduces novel relations linking Dirac eigenvalue derivatives to eigenvalue correlations and applies them to lattice QCD to analyze the axial anomaly at finite temperature.

Findings

Peaked structure in the Dirac spectrum near zero eigenvalue

Non-Poisson correlations in the infrared spectrum

Axial anomaly persists in the chiral limit

Abstract

We introduce novel relations between the derivatives [$\partial^{n}\rho(\lambda, m_{l})/\partial m_{l}^n$] of the Dirac eigenvalue spectrum [$\rho(\lambda, m_{l})$] with respect to the light sea quark mass ($m_{l}$) and the $(n+1)$-point correlations among the eigenvalues ($\lambda$) of the massless Dirac operator. Using these relations we present lattice QCD results for $\partial^{n}\rho(\lambda, m_{l})/\partial m_{l}^n$ ($n=1, 2, 3$) for $m_{l}$ corresponding to pion masses $m_\pi=160-55$ MeV, and at a temperature of about 1.6 times the chiral phase transition temperature. Calculations were carried out using (2+1) flavors of highly improved staggered quarks with the physical value of strange quark mass, three lattice spacings $a=0.12, 0.08, 0.06$ fm, and lattices having aspect ratios $4-9$. We find that $\rho(\lambda\to0, m_{l})$ develops a peaked structure. This peaked structure arises due to non-Poisson correlations within the infrared part of the Dirac eigenvalue spectrum, becomes sharper as $a\to0$, and its amplitude is proportional to $m_{l}^2$. We demonstrate that this $\rho(\lambda\to0,m_l)$ is responsible for the manifestations of axial anomaly in two-point correlation functions of light scalar and pseudoscalar mesons. After continuum and chiral extrapolations we find that axial anomaly remains manifested in two-point correlation functions of scalar and pseudoscalar mesons in the chiral limit.