Speaker
Description
The theoretical prediction of the muon $g-2$ depends crucially on the hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP), whose evaluation relies either on experimental data through dispersive relations or on lattice QCD calculations. Since the former probes the time-like region while the latter is formulated in the space-like region, their comparison cannot be performed locally, and the origin of the differences observed in global determinations remains to be fully understood. In this work we investigate whether part of this difference could arise from sources of uncertainty that have not yet been systematically explored. We focus on the heavy-quark sector, particularly the charm contribution, which can be cleanly isolated in both approaches. Using relativistic QCD sum rules for the vector current correlator, computed in perturbative QCD up to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^3)$, we determine the heavy-quark masses and their contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment. Treating the integration kernel as a dynamical degree of freedom, we explore its functional space and quantify how optimized kernels can reduce theoretical uncertainties while revealing the intrinsic correlation between heavy-quark mass determinations and their impact on $a_\mu$.
| Are you an early career researcher? | Yes, a PhD student |
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