$B_K$ from improved staggered fermions using SU(3) chiral perturbation theory

Abstract

We present recent progress in our calculation of $B_K$ with improved staggered fermions using chiral extrapolations based on SU(3) staggered chiral perturbation theory. We have accumulated significantly higher statistics on the coarse, fine, and ultrafine MILC asqtad lattices. This leads to a reduction in statistical error and an improved continuum extrapolation. Our updated result is $\hat{B}_K = B_K(\text{RGI}) = 0.737 \pm 0.003(\text{stat}) \pm 0.046 (\text{sys})$. This is consistent with the result obtained using chiral extrapolations based on SU(2) staggered chiral perturbation theory, although the total error is somewhat larger with the SU(3) analysis.