Searching for the first radial excitation of the $\Delta(1232)$ in lattice QCD

Abstract

We present a lattice QCD analysis of the $ \Delta $-baryon spectrum, with the goal of finding the position of the $ 2s $ radial excitation of the $ \Delta(1232) $ ground state. Using smeared three-quark operators in a correlation matrix analysis, we report masses for the ground, first and second excited states of the $ J^P = 3/2^+ $ spectrum across a broad range of $ m_\pi^2 $. We identify the lowest lying state as being a $ 1s $ state, consistent with the well known $ \Delta(1232) $. The first excitation is identified as a $ 2s $ state, but is found to have a mass of approximately 2.15~GeV on our $ \sim3 $ fm lattice, which does not appear to be associated with the $ \Delta(1600) $ resonance in a significant manner. We also report on the spin-$ 1/2 $ and odd-parity states accessible via our methods. The large excitation energies of the radial excitations provide a potential resolution to the long-standing missing baryon resonances problem.