The Yang-Mills gradient flow in finite volume
A bstractThe Yang-Mills gradient flow is considered on the four dimensional torus T4 for SU(N) gauge theory coupled to Nf flavors of massless fermions in arbitrary representations. The small volume dynamics is dominated by the constant gauge fields. The expectation value of the field strength tensor squared TrFμνFμν (t) is calculated for positive flow time t by treating the non-zero gauge modes perturbatively and the zero modes exactly. The finite volume correction to the infinite volume result is found to contain both algebraic and exponential terms. The leading order result is then used to define a one parameter family of running coupling schemes in which the coupling runs with the linear size of the box. The new scheme is tested numerically in SU(3) gauge theory coupled to Nf = 4 flavors of massless fundamental fermions. The calculations are performed at several lattice spacings with a controlled continuum extrapolation. The continuum result agrees with the perturbative prediction for small renormalized coupling as expected.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Tsallis Fits to p_t Spectra for pp Collisions at LHC
abstract: Phenomenological Tsallis fits to the CMS and ATLAS transverse spectra of charged particles were found to extend for pT from 0.5 to 181 GeV in pp collisions at the LHC at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, and for pT from 0.5 to 31 GeV at sqrt(s) = 0.9 TeV. The simplicity of the Tsallis parametrization and the large range of the fitting transverse momentum raise questions on the physical meaning of the degrees of freedom that enter into the Tsallis distribution or q-statistics

title: Potential Models and Lattice Gauge Current-Current Correlators
abstract: We compare current-current correlators in lattice gauge calculations with correlators in different potential models for a pseudoscalar charmonium in the quark-gluon plasma. An important ingredient in the evaluation of the current-current correlator in the potential model is the basic principle that, out of the set of continuum states, only resonance states and Gamow states with lifetimes of sufficient magnitudes can propagate as composite objects and can contribute to the current-current correlator. When the contributions from the bound states and continuum states are properly treated, the potential model current-current correlators obtained with the potential proposed by Wong [ (2005)] are consistent with the lattice gauge correlators. The proposed potential model thus gains support to be a useful tool to complement lattice gauge calculations for the study of QQ{bar} states at high temperatures.

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: 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: Anomalous Soft Photons associated with Hadron Production in String Fragmentation
abstract: The bosonized QCD2+QED2 system for quarks with two flavors contains QCD2 and QED2 bound states, with an isoscalar photon at about 25 MeV and an isovector (I = 1,I3 = 0) photon at about 44 MeV. Consequently, when a quark and an antiquark at the two ends of a string pulls apart from each other at high energies, hadrons and soft photons will be produced simultaneously in the fragmentation of the string. The production of the QED2 soft photons in association with hadrons may explain the anomalous soft photon data in hadron‐hadron collisions and e+‐e− annihilations at high energies.