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General Physics Motivations for Numerical Simulations of Quantum Field Theory

High Energy Physics - Lattice 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

In this introductory article a brief description of Quantum Field Theories (QFT) is presented with emphasis on the distinction between strongly and weakly coupled theories. A case is made for using numerical simulations to solve QCD, the regnant theory describing the interactions between quarks and gluons. I present an overview of what these calculations involve, why they are hard, and why they are tailor made for parallel computers. Finally, I try to communicate the excitement amongst the practitioners by giving examples of the quantities we will be able to calculate to within a few percent accuracy in the next five years.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-lat/9905027,
  title  = {General Physics Motivations for Numerical Simulations of Quantum Field Theory},
  author = {Rajan Gupta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-lat/9905027},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

20 pages. To appear in a special issue of Parallel Computing devoted to Lattice QCD