Baryon masses from lattice QCD: Beyond the perturbative chiral regime

Abstract

Consideration of the analytic properties of pion-induced baryon self-energies leads to new functional forms for the extrapolation of light baryon masses. These functional forms reproduce the leading non-analytic behavior of chiral perturbation theory, the correct non-analytic behavior at the $N \pi$ threshold and the appropriate heavy-quark limit. They involve only three unknown parameters, which may be obtained by fitting to lattice data. Recent dynamical fermion results from CP-PACS and UKQCD are extrapolated using these new functional forms. We also use these functions to probe the limit of applicability of chiral perturbation theory to the extrapolation of lattice QCD results.