The axial charge of the triton from lattice QCD

TL;DR

This study uses lattice QCD to calculate the axial charge of the triton at physical quark masses, demonstrating that QCD explains the observed modification of the triton's axial charge compared to the proton.

Contribution

It extends previous lattice QCD calculations to lighter quark masses and provides the first estimate of the triton's axial charge ratio at physical quark masses.

Findings

The triton is confirmed as a bound state at these quark masses.

The ratio of triton to proton axial charges is approximately 0.91.

Results agree with experimental data and show QCD explains axial charge modification.

Abstract

The axial charge of the triton is investigated using lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Extending previous work at heavier quark masses, calculations are performed using three ensembles of gauge field configurations generated with quark masses corresponding to a pion mass of 450 MeV. Finite-volume energy levels for the triton, as well as for the deuteron and diproton systems, are extracted from analysis of correlation functions computed on these ensembles, and the corresponding energies are extrapolated to infinite volume using finite-volume pionless effective field theory (FVEFT). It is found with high likelihood that there is a compact bound state with the quantum numbers of the triton at these quark masses. The axial current matrix elements are computed using background field techniques on one of the ensembles and FVEFT is again used to determine the axial charge of the proton and triton. A simple quark mass extrapolation of these results and earlier calculations at heavier quark masses leads to a value of the ratio of the triton to proton axial charges at the physical quark masses of $g_A^{^{3}{\rm H}}/g_A^p=0.91\substack{+0.07 \\ -0.09}$. This result is consistent with the ratio determined from experiment and prefers values less than unity (in which case the triton axial charge would be unmodified from that of the proton), thereby demonstrating that QCD can explain the modification of the axial charge of the triton.