Asymptotic behavior of cutoff effects in Yang-Mills theory and in Wilson's lattice QCD

Abstract: Discretization effects of lattice QCD are described by Symanzik's effective theory when the lattice spacing, $a$, is small. Asymptotic freedom predicts that the leading asymptotic behavior is $\sim a^n [\bar g^2(a^{-1})]^{\hat\gamma_1} \sim a^n \left[\frac{1}{-\log(a\Lambda)}\right]^{\hat\gamma_1}$. For spectral quantities, $n=d$ is given in terms of the (lowest) canonical dimension, $d+4$, of the operators in the local effective Lagrangian and $\hat\gamma_1$ is proportional to the leading eigenvalue of their one-loop anomalous dimension matrix $\gamma^{(0)}$. We determine $\gamma^{(0)}$ for Yang-Mills theory ($n=2$) and discuss consequences in general and for perturbatively improved short distance observables. With the help of results from the literature, we also discuss the $n=1$ case of Wilson fermions with perturbative O$(a)$ improvement and the discretization effects specific to the flavor currents. In all cases known so far, the discretization effects are found to disappear faster than the naive $\sim a^n$ and the log-corrections are a rather weak modification -- in contrast to the two-dimensional O(3) sigma model.