Abstract: A symmetry-preserving approach to the continuum bound-state problem in quantum field theory is used to calculate the masses, leptonic decay constants and light-front distribution amplitudes of empirically accessible heavy-light mesons. The inverse moment of the B-meson distribution is particularly important in treatments of exclusive B-decays using effective field theory and the factorisation formalism; and its value is therefore computed: lambda(B) = (zeta = 2GeV) = 0.54(3) GeV. As an example and in anticipation of precision measurements at new-generation B-factories, the branching fraction for the rare B -> gamma (E-gamma)l nu(l) radiative decay is also calculated, retaining 1/m(B)(2), and 1/E-gamma(2) corrections to the differential decay width, with the result Gamma(B -> gamma l nu l) /Gamma(B) = 0.47 (15) on E-gamma > 1.5 GeV.

Abstract: Ward-Green-Takahashi (WGT) identities play a crucial role in hadron physics, e.g. imposing stringent relationships between the kernels of the one-and two-body problems, which must be preserved in any veracious treatment of mesons as bound states. In this connection, one may view the dressed gluon-quark vertex, Gamma(alpha)(mu), as fundamental. We use a novel representation of Gamma(alpha)(mu), in terms of the gluon-quark scattering matrix, to develop a method capable of elucidating the unique quark-antiquark Bethe-Salpeter kernel, K, that is symmetry consistent with a given quark gap equation. A strength of the scheme is its ability to expose and capitalize on graphic symmetries within the kernels. This is displayed in an analysis that reveals the origin of H-diagrams in K, which are two-particle-irreducible contributions, generated as two-loop diagrams involving the three-gluon vertex, that cannot be absorbed as a dressing of Gamma(alpha)(mu) in a Bethe-Salpeter kernel nor expressed as a member of the class of crossed-box diagrams. Thus, there are no general circumstances under which the WGT identities essential for a valid description of mesons can be preserved by a Bethe-Salpeter kernel obtained simply by dressing both gluon-quark vertices in a ladderlike truncation; and, moreover, adding any number of similarly dressed crossed-box diagrams cannot improve the situation.

Abstract: In this paper we study the nonperturbative structure of the SU(3) four-gluon vertex in the Landau gauge, concentrating on contributions quadratic in the metric. We employ an approximation scheme where “one-loop” diagrams are computed using fully dressed gluon and ghost propagators, and tree-level vertices. When a suitable kinematical configuration depending on a single momentum scale p is chosen, only two structures emerge: the tree-level four-gluon vertex, and a tensor orthogonal to it. A detailed numerical analysis reveals that the form factor associated with this latter tensor displays a change of sign (zero-crossing) in the deep infrared, and finally diverges logarithmically. The origin of this characteristic behavior is proven to be entirely due to the masslessness of the ghost propagators forming the corresponding ghost-loop diagram, in close analogy to a similar effect established for the three-gluon vertex. However, in the case at hand, and under the approximations employed, this particular divergence does not affect the form factor proportional to the tree-level tensor, which remains finite in the entire range of momenta, and deviates moderately from its naive tree-level value. It turns out that the kinematic configuration chosen is ideal for carrying out lattice simulations, because it eliminates from the connected Green's function all one-particle reducible contributions, projecting out the genuine one-particle irreducible vertex. Motivated by this possibility, we discuss in detail how a hypothetical lattice measurement of this quantity would compare to the results presented here, and the potential interference from an additional tensorial structure, allowed by Bose symmetry, but not encountered within our scheme.