Chiral Extrapolation of Hadronic Observables

Abstract

One of the great challenges of lattice QCD is to produce unambiguous predictions for the properties of physical hadrons. We review recent progress with respect to a major barrier to achieving this goal, namely the fact that computation time currently limits us to large quark mass. Using insights from the study of the lattice data itself, together with the general constraints of chiral symmetry, we demonstrate that it is possible to extrapolate accurately and in an essentially model independent manner from the mass region where calculations will be performed within the next five years to the chiral limit.

Comments: Lattice2002(plenary) Invited presentation at The XX Int. Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, Lattice 2002, MIT Boston, June 24--29, 2002