Elementary Particles on a Dedicated Parallel Computer

Abstract

Numerical simulation of lattice QCD is now an indispensable tool for investigating non-perturbative properties of quarks at low energies. In this paper, I introduce a recent lattice QCD calculation of light hadron spectrum and quark masses performed on a dedicated parallel computer, CP-PACS. From a simulation of QCD with two flavors of dynamical quarks, we find $m_{ud}^{\bar{\rm MS}}(2{\rm GeV}) = 3.44^{+0.14}_{-0.22}$ MeV for the averaged mass of $u$ and $d$ quarks to reproduce the experimental masses of $\pi$ and $\rho$ mesons, and $m_{s}^{\bar{\rm MS}}(2{\rm GeV}) = 88^{+4}_{-6}$ MeV or $90^{+5}_{-11}$ MeV to reproduce the $K$ or $\phi$ meson mass. These values are about 20--30% smaller than the previous estimates using the quenched approximation.