Computing the nucleon charge and axial radii directly at Q2=0 in lattice QCD

Abstract
We describe a procedure for extracting momentum derivatives of nucleon matrix elements on the lattice directly at Q2=0. This is based on the Rome method for computing momentum derivatives of quark propagators. We apply this procedure to extract the nucleon isovector magnetic moment and charge radius as well as the isovector induced pseudoscalar form factor at Q2=0 and the axial radius. For comparison, we also determine these quantities with the traditional approach of computing the corresponding form factors, i.e. GEv(Q2) and GMv(Q2) for the case of the vector current and GPv(Q2) and GAv(Q2) for the axial current, at multiple Q2 values followed by z-expansion fits. We perform our calculations at the physical pion mass using a 2HEX-smeared Wilson-clover action. To control the effects of excited-state contamination, the calculations were done at three source-sink separations and the summation method was used. The derivative method produces results consistent with those from the traditional approach but with larger statistical uncertainties especially for the isovector charge and axial radii.
Funding Information
  • Forschungszentrum Jülich
  • National Science Foundation (PHY-1520996)
  • RIKEN
  • Brookhaven National Laboratory
  • University of Arizona
  • Stony Brook University
  • U.S. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-96ER40965, DE-SC-0011090, DE-FC02-06ER41444)
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB-TRR 55)
  • High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart