The B Meson Decay Constant from Unquenched Lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper calculates the B meson decay constant and its ratio using unquenched lattice QCD with improved actions, providing more accurate results by including sea quark effects and exploring lighter quark masses.

Contribution

It introduces a new unquenched lattice QCD calculation of f_B and f_{B_s}/f_B using improved staggered quarks and Nonrelativistic QCD for the b quark, with enhanced chiral extrapolation.

Findings

f_B = 216(9)(19)(4)(6) MeV

f_{B_s}/f_B = 1.20(3)(1)

Improved chiral extrapolation enabled more precise results.

Abstract

We present determinations of the B meson decay constant f_B and of the ratio f_{B_s}/f_B using the MILC collaboration unquenched gauge configurations which include three flavors of light sea quarks. The mass of one of the sea quarks is kept around the strange quark mass, and we explore a range in masses for the two lighter sea quarks down to m_s/8. The heavy b quark is simulated using Nonrelativistic QCD, and both the valence and sea light quarks are represented by the highly improved (AsqTad) staggered quark action. The good chiral properties of the latter action allow for a much smoother chiral extrapolation to physical up and down quarks than has been possible in the past. We find f_B = 216(9)(19)(4) (6) MeV and f_{B_s} /f_B = 1.20(3)(1).