Neutron electric dipole moment from lattice QCD

Abstract

We carry out a feasibility study for the lattice QCD calculation of the neutron electric dipole moment (NEDM) in the presence of the $\theta$ term. We develop the strategy to obtain the nucleon EDM from the CP-odd electromagnetic form factor $F_3$ at small $\theta$, in which NEDM is given by $\lim_{q^2\to 0}\theta F_3(q^2)/(2m_N)$ where $q$ is the momentum transfer and $m_N$ is the nucleon mass. We first derive a formula which relates $F_3$, a matrix element of the electromagnetic current between nucleon states, with vacuum expectation values of nucleons and/or the current. In the expansion of $\theta$, the parity-odd part of the nucleon-current-nucleon three-point function contains contributions not only from the parity-odd form factors but also from the parity-even form factors multiplied by the parity-odd part of the nucleon two-point function, and therefore the latter contribution must be subtracted to extract $F_3$. We then perform an explicit lattice calculation employing the domain-wall quark action with the RG improved gauge action in quenched QCD at $a^{-1}\simeq 2$ GeV on a $16^3\times 32\times 16$ lattice. At the quark mass $m_f a =0.03$, corresponding to $m_\pi/m_\rho \simeq 0.63$, we accumulate 730 configurations, which allow us to extract the parity-odd part in both two- and three-point functions. Employing two different Dirac $\gamma$ matrix projections, we show that a consistent value for $F_3$ cannot be obtained without the subtraction described above. We obtain $F_3(q^2\simeq 0.58 \textrm{GeV}^2)/(2m_N) =$ $-$0.024(5) $e\cdot$fm for the neutron and $F_3(q^2\simeq 0.58 \textrm{GeV}^2)/(2m_N) =$ 0.021(6) $e\cdot$fm for the proton.