Excited-state hadron masses from lattice QCD
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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Exploring early parton momentum distribution with the ridge from the near-side jet
abstract: In a central nucleus-nucleus collision at high energies, medium partons kicked by a near-side jet acquire a momentum along the jet direction and subsequently materialize as the observed ridge particles. They carry direct information on the early parton momentum distribution which can be extracted by using the ridge data for central AuAu collisions at √s NN = 200 GeV. The extracted parton momentum distribution has a thermal-like transverse momentum distribution but a non-Gaussian, relatively flat rapidity distribution at mid-rapidity with sharp kinematic boundaries at large rapidities that depend on the transverse momentum.

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.

title: The Momentum Kick Model Description of the Near-Side Ridge and Jet Quenching
abstract: In central high-energy heavy-ion collisions, jets are produced in nucleon-nucleon collisions and they interact with the dense medium produced in the interacting region. Depending on the relative azimuthal angle relative to the trigger particle, observed high-pt jets can be classified as near-side jets or away-side jets. An away-side jet is associated with a broad cone of particles pointing azimuthally opposite to the trigger particle direction. The strong attenuation of the away-side jet in its passage through the produced dense matter is one of the many notable experimental observations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and is a signature for the production of the strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma [1, 2, 3, 4]. On the other hand, a near-side jet is characterized by the presence of associated particles within a narrow azimuthal angle along the trigger particle direction. It retains many of the characteristics of the associated fragmentation products as those of a jet in pp and peripheral heavy-ion collisions. The near-side jet occurs when the high-pt jet emerges near the surface of the produced parton medium.

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.