Non-perturbative quark mass renormalization in two-flavor QCD

The running of renormalized quark masses is computed in lattice QCD with two flavors of massless O(a) improved Wilson quarks. The regularization and flavor independent factor that relates running quark masses to the renormalization group invariant ones is evaluated in the Schrodinger functional scheme. Using existing data for the scale r(0) and the pseudoscalar meson masses, we define a reference quark mass in QCD with two degenerate quark flavors. We then compute the renormalization group invariant reference quark mass at three different lattice spacings. Our estimate for the continuum value is converted to the strange quark mass with the help of chiral perturbation theory. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.