Chiral extrapolation of the charged-pion magnetic polarizability with Pad\'e approximant

Abstract

The background magnetic-field formalism of Lattice QCD has been used recently to calculate the magnetic polarizability of the charged pion. These $n_f = 2 + 1$ numerical simulations are electro-quenched, such that the virtual sea-quarks of the QCD vacuum do not interact with the background field. To understand the impact of this, we draw on partially quenched chiral perturbation theory. In this case, the leading term proportional to $1/M_\pi$ arises at tree level from $\mathcal{L}_4$. To describe the results from lattice QCD, while maintaining the exact leading terms of chiral perturbation theory, we introduce a Pad\'e approximant designed to reproduce the slow variation observed in the lattice QCD results. Two-loop contributions are introduced to assess the systematic uncertainty associated with higher-order terms of the expansion. Upon extrapolation, the magnetic polarizability of the charged pion at the physical pion mass is found to be $\beta_{\pi^\pm}=-1.70\,(14)_{\rm stat}(25)_{\rm syst}\times 10^{-4}$ fm$^3$, in good agreement with the recent experimental measurement.