Vacuum correlators at short distances from lattice QCD

Non-perturbatively computing the hadronic vacuum polarization at large photon virtualities and making contact with perturbation theory enables a precision determination of the electromagnetic coupling at the Z pole, which enters global electroweak fits. In order to achieve this goal ab initio using lattice QCD, one faces the challenge that, at the short distances which dominate the observable, discretization errors are hard to control. Here we address challenges of this type with the help of static screening correlators in the high-temperature phase of QCD, yet without incurring any bias. The idea is motivated by the observations that (a) the cost of high-temperature simulations is typically much lower than their vacuum counterpart, and (b) at distances x3 far below the inverse temperature 1/T, the operator-product expansion guarantees the thermal correlator of two local currents to deviate from the vacuum correlator by a relative amount that is power-suppressed in (x3T). The method is first investigated in lattice perturbation theory, where we point out the appearance of an O(a2 log(1/a)) lattice artifact in the vacuum polarization with a prefactor that we calculate. It is then applied to non-perturbative lattice QCD data with two dynamical flavors of quarks. Our lattice spacings range down to 0.049 fm for the vacuum simulations and down to 0.033 fm for the simulations performed at a temperature of 250 MeV.

Gravitational Field and Mass

It is extremely fascinating and astonishing that the gravitational field on the surface of a neutron star is with a relativistic mass density of 2.65*1016~5.87*1018kgm-3 which can be larger than the mass density of the neutron star (~1017kgm-3).Therefore, it is the author’s first intuitional imagining that this field could directly convert into mass. In so strong a gravitational field, electron and proton could be produced directly from graviton–photon collision. The gravitational field exists in everywhere in our universe. No vacuum that the region of a space is “empty” does exist. A particle is clearly always being acted on by the gravitational field. The quantum vacuum fluctuation and vacuum polarization need be re-understood with the interaction between photon and gravitational field. Therefore, the gravitational field is naturally one of the foundations of modern physics.

Vacuum Polarization and Particle Creation for Two-Horizon Metrics

Kerr–Newman and Kottler’s metrics with two horizons are considered. Evaporation of Kerr – Newman’s horizons in Hawking’s effect and Penrose’s process as well as de Sitter’s horizon decay and Schwarzschild’s horizon evaporation for Kottler’s metric have been analyzed in terms of an effective temperature, using lifetimes on the horizons. The results are applied to black hole physics and cosmology.

Muon g − 2 from millicharged hidden confining sector

We provide a novel explanation to the muon g − 2 excess with new physics contributions at the two-loop level. In this scenario, light millicharged particles are introduced to modify the photon vacuum polarization that contributes to muon g − 2 at one additional loop. The muon g − 2 excess can be explained with the millicharged particle mass mχ around 10 MeV and the product of the multiplicity factor and millicharge squared of Nχε2 ∼ 10−3. The minimal model faces severe constraints from direct searches at fixed-target experiments and astrophysical observables. However, if the millicharged particles are also charged under a hidden confining gauge group SU(Nχ) with a confinement scale of MeV, hidden-sector hadrons are unstable and can decay into neutrinos, which makes this scenario consistent with existing constraints. This explanation can be well tested at low-energy lepton colliders such as BESIII and Belle II as well as other proposed fixed-target experiments.

Gauge independent quantum gravitational corrections to Maxwell’s equation

We consider quantum gravitational corrections to Maxwell’s equations on flat space background. Although the vacuum polarization is highly gauge dependent, we explicitly show that this gauge dependence is canceled by contributions from the source which disturbs the effective field and the observer who measures it. Our final result is a gauge independent, real and causal effective field equation that can be used in the same way as the classical Maxwell equation.

Derivative corrections to the Heisenberg-Euler effective action

We show that the leading derivative corrections to the Heisenberg-Euler effective action can be determined efficiently from the vacuum polarization tensor evaluated in a homogeneous constant background field. After deriving the explicit parameter-integral representation for the leading derivative corrections in generic electromagnetic fields at one loop, we specialize to the cases of magnetic- and electric-like field configurations characterized by the vanishing of one of the secular invariants of the electromagnetic field. In these cases, closed-form results and the associated all-orders weak- and strong-field expansions can be worked out. One immediate application is the leading derivative correction to the renowned Schwinger-formula describing the decay of the quantum vacuum via electron-positron pair production in slowly-varying electric fields.

The lack of vacuum polarization in quantum electrodynamics with spinors in fermion equations

In this paper, the versions of quantum electrodynamics (QED) with spinors in fermion equations are briefly examined. In the new variants of the theory, the concept of vacuum polarization is unnecessary. The new content of fermion vacuum (without the Dirac sea) in the examined versions of QED leads to new physical consequences, part of which can be tested experimentally in the future.