B meson decay constant from two-flavor lattice QCD with non-relativistic heavy quarks

TL;DR

This paper calculates B meson decay constants using two-flavor lattice QCD with NRQCD for heavy quarks, providing updated values and analyzing the impact of sea quarks on these constants.

Contribution

It presents the first two-flavor lattice QCD calculation of B meson decay constants with non-relativistic heavy quarks, including continuum extrapolation and comparison to quenched results.

Findings

Calculated decay constants: f_B=204(8)(29)(+44) MeV, f_{B_s}=242(9)(34)(+38) MeV.

Sea quarks increase decay constants by 5-10%.

Ratio f_{B_s}/f_B remains unchanged with sea quarks.

Abstract

We present a study of leptonic $B$ meson decay constants in lattice QCD with two flavors ($N_f=2$) of light dynamical quarks using NRQCD for the heavy quark. Gauge configurations are generated with a renormalization-group improved gauge action and a meanfield-improved clover light quark action. Measurements are carried out at two values of $\beta=6/g^2$, each for four sea quark masses, corresponding to the inverse lattice spacing $a^{-1}\approx 1.3$ and 1.8 GeV in the chiral limit of sea quark. The continuum values of the decay constants are derived by evaluating the discretization errors at each finite lattice spacing. We find $f_B^{N_f=2}=204(8)(29)(+44) $ MeV, $f_{B_s}^{N_f=2} = 242(9)(34)(+38)$ MeV, and $f_{B_s}^{N_f=2}/f_B^{N_f=2} = 1.179(18)(23)$, where the errors listed are statistical, systematic and uncertainty due to choice of the physical quantity used to fix the scale. Comparison is made to quenched results ($N_f=0$) obtained with the same action combination and matching lattice spacings. We find $f_B^{N_f=2}/f_B^{N_f=0}=1.07(5)$, $f_{B_s}^{N_f=2}/f_{B_s}^{N_f=0}=1.10(5)$ and $(f_{B_s}/f_B)^{N_f=2}/(f_{B_s}/f_B)^{N_f=0}=1.03(2)$, which indicates a 5--10% increase in the values of the decay constants, but no appreciable change in the ratio $f_{B_s}/f_B$, due to sea quarks.