Slope of the beta function at the fixed point of SU(2) gauge theory with six or eight flavors

Abstract

We consider measurement of the leading irrelevant scaling exponent ${\gamma }_g^{\ast }$, given by the slope of the beta function, at the fixed point of SU(2) gauge theory with six or eight flavors. We use the running coupling measured using the gradient flow method and perform the continuum extrapolation by interpolating the measured beta function. We study also the dependence of the results on different discretization of the flow. For the eight flavor theory we find ${\gamma }_g^{\ast }=0.19(8{)}_{-0.09}^{+0.21}$. Applying the same analysis also for the six flavor theory, we find ${\gamma }_g^{\ast }=0.648(97{)}_{-0.1}^{+0.16}$ consistently with the earlier analysis.

Comments: 11 pages, 15 figures, updated to match published version