Low-Energy Constants of Chiral Perturbation Theory from Pion Scalar Form Factors in $N_f=2+1$-Flavor Lattice QCD with Controlled Errors

Abstract

We determine the low-energy constants (LECs) $f_0$, $L_4^r$ and $L_5^r$ of SU(3) Chiral Perturbation Theory ($\chi$PT) from a lattice QCD calculation of the scalar form factors of the pion with fully controlled systematics. Lattice results are computed on a large set of $N_f=2+1$ gauge ensembles covering four lattice spacings $a\in[0.049,0.086]\mathrm{fm}$, pion masses $M_\pi\in[130,350]\mathrm{MeV}$, and various large physical volumes. By determining the notorious quark-disconnected contributions with unprecedented precision and using a large range of source-sink separations $t_\mathrm{sep}\in[1.0,3.25]\mathrm{fm}$, we are able for the first time to obtain the scalar radii from a $z$-expansion parameterization of the form factors rather than a simple linear approximation at small momentum transfer. The LECs are obtained from the physical extrapolation of the radii using NLO SU(3) NLO $\chi$PT to parameterize the quark mass dependence. Systematic uncertainties are estimated via model averages based on the Akaike Information Criterion. Our determination of $L_4^r$ is the first lattice determination to obtain a result not compatible with zero.