Calculation of neutron electric dipole moment from Lattice QCD

Abstract

Experimental constraints on the neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) may imply strong-CP problem in QCD, or unnatural smallness of the QCD theta angle. In this work, we present a novel determination of the neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) $d_n$ sensitivity to theta term from nonperturbative QCD on a lattice with background electric field. Using Feynman-Hellmann theorem, we compute nEDM from the matrix element of local topological charge density between nucleon ground states spatially polarized by an electric field. These states have mixed spatial parity, and we construct them using variational analysis. We obtain statistically significant signal for the theta induced nEDM from lattices with 2+1 dynamical domain wall fermions corresponding to pion masses of 340, 420, and 576 MeV and lattice spacing $a\approx 0.11~\text{fm}$. After extrapolating to the physical point, we obtain $d_n=-0.0050(4)(8)\bar{\theta}$ e$\cdot$fm. Comparison with the current experimental bound on nEDM implies constraint $|\bar{\theta}|\lesssim 10^{-11}$, which confirms existence of the strong-CP problem in QCD. Our pioneering work demonstrates that neutron EDM can be reliably determined from the local density of topological charge with robust control of systematic effects, and can be directly extended to other CP-violating interactions.