Heavy quark masses from finite volume effects

Abstract

I discuss the results of a new calculation of the charm and bottom quark masses in the quenched approximation and in the continuum limit of lattice QCD. The work has been done by the APE group at the ``Tor Vergata'' University making use of the step scaling method, previously introduced to deal with two scale problems, that allows to take the continuum limit of the lattice data. We have computed the RGI quark masses and then we have connected the results to the MSbar scheme. The continuum numbers are m_b^{RGI} = 6.73(16) GeV for the b-quark and m_c^{RGI} = 1.681(36) GeV for the c-quark, corresponding respectively to m_b^{MSbar}(m_b^{MSbar}) = 4.33(10) GeV and m_c^{MSbar}(m_c^{MSbar}) = 1.319(28) GeV. The latter result, in agreement with current estimates, is for us a check of the method.