Kinematically-enhanced interpolating operators for boosted hadrons

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for lattice QCD calculations that uses kinematically-enhanced interpolating operators to improve the signal quality for highly-boosted hadrons, enabling more accurate studies at large momenta.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel class of interpolating operators that enhance ground-state overlap for boosted hadrons, improving signal-to-noise ratios in lattice QCD simulations.

Findings

Effective energies and matrix elements align with theoretical expectations.

Significant improvement in signal-to-noise ratio at large momenta.

Proof-of-principle calculations demonstrate utility of the method.

Abstract

We propose to use interpolating operators for lattice quantum chromodyanmics (QCD) calculations of highly-boosted pions and nucleons with kinematically-enhanced ground-state overlap factors at large momentum. Because this kinematic enhancement applies to the signal but not the variance of the correlation function, these interpolating operators can achieve better signal-to-noise ratios at large momentum. We perform proof-of-principle calculations with boosted pions and nucleons using close-to-physical and larger quark masses to explore the utility of our proposal. Results for effective energies and matrix elements, as well as Lanczos ground-state energy estimators, are consistent with theoretical expectations for signal-to-noise improvement at large momenta.