Mixed Action Simulations on Staggered Background; Interpretation and Result for the 2-flavor QCD Chiral Condensate

Abstract

Growing evidence indicates that in the continuum limit the rooted staggered action is in the correct QCD universality class, the non-local terms arising from taste breaking can be viewed as lattice artifacts. In this paper we consider the 2-flavor Asqtad staggered action at a lattice spacing of approximately 0.13 fm and probe the properties of the staggered configurations by an overlap valence Dirac operator. By comparing the distribution of the overlap eigenmodes to continuum QCD predictions we investigate if/when the lattice artifacts are small as a function of the staggered quark mass. We define a matching overlap quark mass where the lattice corrections are minimal for the topological susceptibility and from the eigenmode distribution we predict the 2-flavor chiral condensate. Our results indicate that the staggered configurations are consistent with 2-flavor continuum QCD up to small lattice artifacts, and predict a consistent value for the infinite volume chiral condensate.

12 pages, 6 figures, REVTeX4

References in corpus (4)

• Observations on staggered fermions at non-zero lattice spacing
• Quark condensate in two-flavor QCD
• Validity of the Rooted Staggered Determinant in the continuum limit
• Quark condensate in one-flavor QCD

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Precision study of the SU(3) topological susceptibility in the continuum
• Universality of Mixed Action Extrapolation Formulae
• Eigenvalue spectra of QCD and the fate of $U_A(1)$ breaking towards the chiral limit
• Mixed Meson Masses with Domain-Wall Valence and Staggered Sea Fermions
• 't Hooft vertices, partial quenching, and rooted staggered QCD
• The condensate for two dynamical chirally improved quarks in QCD
• Localized eigenmodes of the overlap operator and their impact on the eigenvalue distribution
• The chiral condensate on 2-flavor staggered configurations from an overlap operator