Isospin breaking in octet baryon mass splittings

Abstract

Using an SU(3) flavor symmetry breaking expansion in the quark mass, we determine the QCD component of the nucleon, Sigma and Xi mass splittings of the baryon octet due to up-down (and strange) quark mass differences in terms of the kaon mass splitting. Provided the average quark mass is kept constant, the expansion coefficients in our procedure can be determined from computationally cheaper simulations with mass-degenerate sea quarks and partially quenched valence quarks. Both the linear and quadratic terms in the SU(3) flavor symmetry breaking expansion are considered; it is found that the quadratic terms only change the result by a few percent, indicating that the expansion is highly convergent. © 2012 American Physical Society.