Low-energy scattering and effective interactions of two baryons at mπ ∼ 450 MeV from lattice quantum chromodynamics

The interactions between two octet baryons are studied at low energies using lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQCD) with larger-than-physical quark masses corresponding to a pion mass of m(pi) similar to 450 MeV and a kaon mass of m(K) similar to 596 MeV. The two-baryon systems that are analyzed range from strangeness S = 0 to S = -4 and include the spin-singlet and triplet NN, Sigma N (I = 3/2), and Xi Xi states, the spin-singlet Sigma Sigma (I = 2) and Xi Sigma (I = 3/2) states, and the spin-triplet Xi N (I = 0) state. The corresponding s-wave scattering phase shifts, low-energy scattering parameters, and binding energies when applicable are extracted using Ltischer's formalism. While the results are consistent with most of the systems being bound at this pion mass, the interactions in the spin-triplet Sigma N and Xi Xi channels are found to be repulsive and do not support bound states. Using results from previous studies of these systems at a larger pion mass, an extrapolation of the binding energies to the physical point is performed and is compared with available experimental values and phenomenological predictions. The low-energy coefficients in pionless effective field theory (EFT) relevant for two-baryon interactions, including those responsible for SU(3) flavor-symmetry breaking, are constrained. The SU(3) flavor symmetry is observed to hold approximately at the chosen values of the quark masses, as well as the SU(6) spin-flavor symmetry, predicted at large N-c. A remnant of an accidental SU(16) symmetry found previously at a larger pion mass is further observed. The SU(6)-symmetric EFT constrained by these LQCD calculations is used to make predictions for two-baryon systems for which the low-energy scattering parameters could not be determined with LQCD directly in this study, and to constrain the coefficients of all leading SU(3) flavor-symmetric interactions, demonstrating the predictive power of two-baryon EFTS matched to LQCD.

Automated summary

In this study, interactions between two octet baryons at low energies were investigated using LQCD with larger-than-physical quark masses. The results showed that most systems were bound at this pion mass, except for the repulsive interactions in the spin-triplet Sigma N and Xi Xi channels. Extrapolation of binding energies to the physical point was performed, and constraints on low-energy coefficients in pionless EFT relevant for two-baryon interactions were determined.