Wilson fermions at fine lattice spacings: scale setting, pion form factors and (g-2)_mu
We present an update on our on-going project to compute hadronic observables for Nf=2 flavours of O(a) improved Wilson fermions at small lattice spacings. The procedure to determine the lattice scale via the mass of the Omega baryon is described. Furthermore we present preliminary results for the pion form factor computed using twisted boundary conditions, and report on the implementation of a novel approach to determine the contribution of the hadronic vacuum polarisation to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon.

title: Study of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon computed from the Adler function
abstract: We compute the Adler function on the lattice from vacuum polarization data with twisted boundary conditions using numerical derivatives. The study is based on CLS ensembles with two flavours of $O(a)$ improved Wilson fermions. We extrapolate the lattice data for the Adler function to the continuum limit and to the physical pion mass and analyze its dependence on the momentum transfer. We discuss the application of this method to the extraction of the $u,d$ contribution to $a_\mu^{\mathrm{HLO}}$.

title: The shape of covariantly smeared sources in lattice QCD
abstract: A bstractCovariantly smeared sources are commonly used in lattice QCD to enhance the projection onto the ground state. Here we investigate the dependence of their shape on the gauge field background and find that the presence of localized concentrations of magnetic field can lead to strong distortions which reduce the smearing radii achievable by iterative smearing prescriptions. In particular, as a → 0, iterative procedures like Jacobi smearing require increasingly large iteration counts in order to reach physically-sized smearing radii rsm ~ 0.5 fm, and the resulting sources are strongly distorted. To bypass this issue, we propose a covariant smearing procedure (“free-form smearing”) that allows us to create arbitrarily shaped sources, including in particular Gaussians of arbitrary radius.

title: The leading disconnected contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon
abstract: The hadronic vacuum polarization can be determined from the vector correlator in a mixed time-momentum representation. We explicitly calculate the disconnected contribution to the vector correlator, both in the $N_f = 2$ theory and with an additional quenched strange quark, using non-perturbatively $O(a)$-improved Wilson fermions. All-to-all propagators are computed using stochastic sources and a generalized hopping parameter expansion. Combining the result with the dominant connected contribution, we are able to estimate an upper bound for the systematic error that arises from neglecting the disconnected contribution in the determination of $(g-2)_\mu$.

title: Excited state systematics in extracting nucleon electromagnetic form factors
abstract: We present updated preliminary results for the nucleon electromagnetic form factors for nonperturbatively O(a) improved Wilson fermions in N f = 2 QCD measured on the CLS ensembles. The use of the summed operator insertion method allows us to suppress the influence of excited states in our measurements. A study of the effect that excited state contaminations have on the Q2 dependence of the extracted nucleon form factors may then be made through comparisons of the summation method to standard plateau fits, as well as to excited state fits.

title: Hadronic contribution to the lepton anomalous magnetic moment and pion form factor in lattice QCD
abstract: The Mainz lattice QCD group is currently carrying out simulations of lattice QCD with the aim of making predictions for a wide range of phenomenologically relevant Standard Model properties. Here we present progress in understanding and controlling systematic effects in the computation of the pion vector form factor and the leading hadronic contribution to the lepton anomalous magnetic moment.

title: Single inclusive jet production in polarized $p p$ collisions at $O(alpha^3_s)$
abstract: We present a next-to-leading order QCD calculation for single-inclusive high-${p}_{T}$ jet production in longitudinally polarized pp collisions within the ``small-cone'' approximation. The fully analytical expressions obtained for the underlying partonic hard-scattering cross sections greatly facilitate the analysis of upcoming BNL-RHIC data on the double-spin asymmetry ${A}_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{jet}}$ for this process in terms of the unknown polarization of gluons in the nucleon. We simultaneously rederive the corresponding QCD corrections to unpolarized scattering and confirm the results existing in the literature. We also numerically compare to results obtained with Monte Carlo methods and assess the range of validity of the ``small-cone'' approximation for the kinematics relevant at BNL-RHIC.

title: QCD Corrections to Vector Boson Pair Production via Weak Boson Fusion
abstract: NLO-QCD corrections to vector boson pair production via weak boson fusion have recently been calculated and implemented into flexible parton-level Monte-Carlo programs. These allow for the computation of cross sections and kinematical distributions within realistic experimental cuts. We summarize the basic elements of the calculation and review phenomenological results for the LHC.

title: Next-to-leading-order QCD corrections to W(+)Z and W(-)Z production via vector-boson fusion
abstract: We present the calculation of the next-to-leading-order QCD corrections to electroweak pp{yields}e{sup +} The QCD corrections to the total cross sections are modest, changing the leading-order results by less than 10%. At the Born level, the shape of kinematic distributions can depend significantly on the choice of factorization scale. This theoretical uncertainty is strongly reduced by the inclusion of the next-to-leading-order QCD corrections.

title: Longitudinally polarized photoproduction of inclusive hadrons beyond the leading order
abstract: We present a complete next-to-leading order QCD calculation for single-inclusive large-pT hadron production in longitudinally polarized lepton-nucleon collisions, consistently including ``direct'' and ``resolved'' photon contributions. This process could be studied experimentally at a future polarized lepton-proton collider like eRHIC at BNL. We examine the sensitivity of such measurements to the so far completely unknown parton content of circularly polarized photons.

title: Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to photon production via weak-boson fusion
abstract: We present a calculation of next-to-leading order QCD corrections to γjj production via weak-boson fusion at a hadron collider in the form of a flexible parton-level Monte Carlo program which allows us to study cross sections and distributions within experimentally relevant selection cuts. The radiative corrections are found to be moderate with residual scale uncertainties being considerably improved beyond tree level. The sensitivity of the reaction to anomalous W+W−γ couplings is investigated.