Measurement of the mass anomalous dimension of near-conformal adjoint QCD with the gradient flow

TL;DR

This study measures the mass anomalous dimension in SU(2) gauge theory with various adjoint fermion flavors using gradient flow, confirming near-conformal behavior and validating the method against prior results.

Contribution

It applies a gradient flow-based numerical method to determine the mass anomalous dimension across multiple flavor numbers, including challenging cases with half-integer flavors.

Findings

Near-conformal behavior for Nf=2, 3/2, and 1

Method reliably reproduces known results for Nf=2

Gradient flow approach is effective for this analysis

Abstract

The mass anomalous dimension is determined in SU(2) gauge theory coupled to $N_f$ fermions in the adjoint representation for $N_f = 2$, $3/2$, $1$ and $1/2$, where half-integer flavor numbers correspond to Majorana fermions. The numerical method is based on gradient flow. The results show near-conformal behavior for $N_f = 2$, $3/2$ and $1$. Particular emphasis is placed on $N_f = 2$, which is relevant for a strongly interacting extension of the Standard Model and has been studied in several previous investigations. We check whether the method is able to resolve discrepancies in earlier results for this theory. Overall, the method based on the gradient flow delivers reliable results in qualitative agreement with previously known numerical data.