We present a study of the pseudoscalar and vector meson form factors, calculated using the Fat-Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) action in the framework of Quenched Lattice QCD. Of particular interest is the determination of a negative quadrupole moment, indicating that the ρ meson is not spherically symmetric.

We have observed the formation of gluon flux-tubes within baryons using lattice QCD techniques. A high-statistics approach, based on translational and rotational symmetries of the four-dimensional lattice, enables us to observe correlations between vacuum action density and quark positions in a completely gauge independent manner. This contrasts with earlier studies which used gauge-dependent smoothing techniques. We used 200 O(a^2) improved quenched QCD gauge-field configurations on a 16^3x32 lattice with a lattice spacing of 0.123 fm. In the presence of static quarks flux tubes representing the suppression of gluon-field fluctuations are observed. We have analyzed 11 L-shapes and 8 T and Y shapes of varying sizes in order to explore a variety of flux-tube topologies, including the ground state. At large separations, Y-shape flux-tube formation is observed. T-shaped paths are observed to relax towards a Y-shaped topology, whereas L-shaped paths give rise to a large potential energy. We do not find any evidence for the formation of a Delta-shaped flux-tube (empty triangle) distribution. However, at small quark separations, we observe an expulsion of gluon-field fluctuations in the shape of a filled triangle with maximal expulsion at the centre of the triangle. Having identified the precise geometry of the flux distribution, we are able to perform quantitative comparison between the length of the flux-tube and the associated static quark potential. For every source configuration considered we find a universal string tension, and conclude that, for large quark separations, the ground state potential is that which minimizes the length of the flux-tube. The flux tube radius of the baryonic ground state potential is found to be 0.38 \pm 0.03 fm, with vacuum fluctuations suppressed by 7.2 \pm 0.6 %.Comment: 16 pages, final version as accepted for publication in Physical review D1. Abstract, text, references and some figures have been revise

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We discuss a robust projection method for the extraction of excited-state masses of the nucleon from a matrix of correlation functions. To illustrate the algorithm in practice, we present results for the positive parity excited states of the nucleon in quenched QCD. Using eigenvectors obtained via the variational method, we construct an eigenstate-projected correlation function amenable to standard analysis techniques. The method displays its utility when comparing results from the fit of the projected correlation function with those obtained from the eigenvalues of the variational method. Standard nucleon interpolators are considered, with 2 × 2 and 3 × 3 correlation matrix analyses presented using various combinations of source-smeared, sink-smeared and smeared-smeared correlation functions. Using these new robust methods, we observe a systematic dependency of the extracted nucleon excited-state masses on source-and sink-smearing levels. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first clear indication that a correlation matrix of standard nucleon interpolators is insufficient to isolate the eigenstates of QCD.

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