Evidence for pronounced quark loop effects in QCD

Abstract

We have measured the hadron spectrum in lattice QCD, using staggered fermions, for 0 (the quenched approximation), 2 and 4 light degenerate dynamical quarks. In addition to earlier results involving extrapolations in valence quark masses for fixed dynamical mass, we also report results where we extrapolate in the dynamical mass for 4 flavors. We see a marked difference in the hadron spectrum for 2 and 4 flavors; the hadron spectrum is nearly parity doubled for 4 flavors, indicating smaller effects of chiral symmetry breaking. This pronounced effect in the hadron spectrum cannot be removed by a simple change in scale as the number of light quark flavors is changed. Further simulations at larger volume are needed to rule out finite volume effects.