Excited-state hadron masses using the stochastic LapH method
Progress in computing the spectrum of excited baryons and mesons in lattice QCD is described. Large sets of spatially-extended hadron operators are used. The need for multi-hadron operators in addition to single-hadron operators is emphasized, necessitating the use of a new stochastic method of treating the low-lying modes of quark propagation which exploits Laplacian Heaviside quark-field smearing. A new glueball operator is tested and computing the mixing of this glueball operator with a quark-antiquark operator and multiple two-pion operators is shown to be feasible. Some of our initial results show warning signs about extracting high-lying resonance energies using only single-hadron operators.

title: Baryon spectrum in the composite sextet model
abstract: The strongly coupled near-conformal gauge theory with two fermion flavors in the two-index symmetric (sextet) representation of SU(3) is potentially a minimal realization of the composite Higgs mechanism. We discuss the staggered fermion construction of baryonic states, present our first numerical results and comment on implications for dark matter.

title: Twelve fundamental and two sextet fermion flavors
abstract: We report extended simulation results and their new analysis in two important gauge theories with twelve fermion flavors in the fundamental SU(3) color representation and two fermions in the sextet representation. We probe the $N_f=12$ model with respect to the conformal window using mass deformed finite size scaling (FSS) theory driven by the fermion mass anomalous dimension. Our results at fixed gauge coupling show problems with the conformal scenario of the $N_f=12$ model. In the sextet model with two flavors, under the conformal hypothesis, we determine large values for the anomalous fermion mass dimension with $\gamma\geq 1$. Since our sextet analysis favors the chiral symmetry breaking hypothesis without conformality, the large exponent $\gamma$ could play an important role in understanding the composite Higgs mechanism. The new results discussed here include our extended data sets and exceed what was presented at the conference.

title: Pion-pion scattering phase shifts with the stochastic LapH method
abstract: Progress in calculating scattering phase shifts on $N_f=2+1$ anisotropic clover Wilson lattices is described. The stochastic LapH method facilitates computations in large volumes and for light pion masses. Results for pion masses down to 240 MeV, keeping $m_\pi L > 4$, are presented.

title: The ﬁnite volume spectrum of excited states from lattice QCD simulations
abstract: We present results for the spectrum of excited mesons obtained from temporal correlations of spatially-extended single-hadron and multi-hadron operators computed in lattice QCD. The stochastic LapH algorithm is implemented on anisotropic, dynamical lattices for isovectors for pions of mass 390 MeV. A large correlation matrix with single-particle and two-particle probe operators is diagonalized to identify resonances. The masses of excited states in the I = 1,S = 0,T 1u channel as well as the mixing of single and multi-particle probe operators are presented.

title: Can the nearly conformal sextet gauge model hide the Higgs impostor
abstract: New results are reported from large scale lattice simulations of a frequently discussed strongly interacting gauge theory with a fermion flavor doublet in the two-index symmetric (sextet) representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. We find that the chiral condensate and the mass spectrum of the sextet model are consistent with chiral symmetry breaking in the limit of vanishing fermion mass. In contrast, sextet fermion mass deformations of spectral properties are not consistent with leading conformal scaling behavior near the critical surface of a conformal theory. A recent paper could not resolve the conformal fixed point of the gauge coupling from the slowly walking scenario of a very small nearly vanishing β -function (DeGrand et al.  ). It is argued that overall consistency with our new results is resolved if the sextet model is close to the conformal window, staying outside with a very small non-vanishing β -function. The model would exhibit then the simplest composite Higgs mechanism leaving open the possibility of a light scalar state with quantum numbers of the Higgs impostor. It would emerge as the pseudo-Goldstone dilaton state from spontaneous symmetry breaking of scale invariance. We will argue that even without association with the dilaton, the scalar Higgs-like state can be light very close to the conformal window. A new Higgs project of sextet lattice simulations is outlined to resolve these important questions.

title: Effects of dynamical quarks on the stability of heavy quarkonia in quark-gluon plasma
abstract: To study the stability of heavy quarkonia in quark-gluon plasma, we use a color-singlet Q-Qbar potential determined previously to be a well-defined linear combination of the free energy F_1 and the internal energy U_1. Using the lattice gauge results of Kaczmarek et al., the dissociation temperatures of J/psi and chi_b in quenched QCD are found to be 1.62Tc and 1.18Tc respectively, in good agreement with spectral function analyses. The dissociation temperature of J/psi in full QCD with 2 flavors is 1.42Tc. Thus, the presence of dynamical quarks in full QCD lowers the dissociation temperature of J/psi, but J/psi remains bound up to 1.42Tc.

title: Foundation of Hydrodynamics for Systems with Strong Interactions
abstract: For a dense and strongly interacting system, such as a nucleus or a strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma, the foundation of hydrodynamics can be better found in the quantum description of constituents moving in the strong mean fields generated by all other particles. Using the result that the Schroedinger equation and the Klein-Gordon equation can be written in hydrodynamical forms, we find that the probability currents of the many-body system in the mean-field description obey a hydrodynamical equation with stress tensors arising from many contributions: quantum effects, mean-field interactions, and thermal fluctuations. The influence of various contributions to the hydrodynamical motion is expected to vary with the temperature, as the quantum and mean-field stress tensors playing more important roles at low and moderate temperatures.

title: Heavy quarkonia in quark-gluon plasma
abstract: Q in quenched QCD, we study the binding energies and wave functions of heavy quarkonia in a quark-gluon plasma. By minimizing the grand potential in a simplified schematic model, we find that the proper color-singlet Q- ¯ Q potential can be obtained from the total internal energy U1 by subtracting the gluon internal energy contributions. We carry out this subtraction in the local energy-density approximation in which the gluon energy density can be related to the local gluon pressure by the quark-gluon plasma equation of state. We find in this approximation that the proper color-singlet Q- ¯ Q potential is approximately F1 for T ∼ Tc and it changes to 3 F1 + 1 U1 at high temperatures. In this potential model, the J/ ψ is weakly bound above the phase-transition temperature Tc, and it dissociates spontaneously above 1.62Tc, whereas χc and ψ � are unbound in the quark-gluon plasma. The bottomium states ϒ, χb ,a ndϒ � are bound in the quark-gluon plasma and they dissociate at 4.1Tc, 1.18Tc, and 1.38Tc respectively. For comparison, we evaluate the heavy quarkonium binding energies also in other models using the free energy F1 or the total internal energy U1 as the Q- ¯ Q potential. The comparison shows that the model with the new Q- ¯ Q potential proposed here gives dissociation temperatures that agree best with those from spectral function analyses. We evaluate the cross section for σ (g + J/ ψ → c + ¯ c) and its inverse process to determine the J/ ψdissociation width and the rate of J/ ψ production by recombining c and ¯ c in the quark-gluon plasma.

title: Quarkonia and quark drip lines in a quark-gluon plasma
abstract: We extract the Q-Q potential by using the thermodynamic quantities obtained in lattice gauge calculations. The potential is tested and found to give spontaneous dissociation temperatures that agree well with those from lattice gauge spectral function analysis. Using such a Q-Q potential, we examine the quarkonium states in a quark-gluon plasma and determine the "quark drip lines" which separate the region of bound color-singlet Q Q states from the unbound region. The characteristics of the quark drip lines severely limit the region of possible bound Q Q states with light quarks to temperatures close to the phase transition temperature. Bound quarkonia with light quarks may exist very near the phase transition temperature if their effective quark mass is of the order of 300-400 MeV and higher.

title: Signals in Single-Event Pion Interferometry for Granular Sources of Quark-Gluon Plasma Droplets
abstract: We investigate two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations of quark-gluon plasma droplet sources in single-event measurements. We find that the distribution of the fluctuation between correlation functions of the single and mixed events provides useful signals to detect the granular structure of the source.