The Sp(4) gauge theory with two Dirac fundamental flavours provides a candidate for the microscopic origin of composite-Higgs models based on the SU (4)/Sp(4) coset. We employ a combination of two different, complementary strategies for the numerical lattice calculations, based on the Hybrid Monte Carlo and on the Heat Bath algorithms. We perform pure Yang-Mills, quenched computations and exploratory studies with dynamical Wilson fermions.We present the first results in the literature for the spectrum of glueballs of the pure Sp(4) Yang-Mills theory, an EFT framework for the interpretation of the masses and decay constants of the lightest pion, vector and axial-vector mesons, and a preliminary calculation of the latter in the quenched approximation. We show the first numerical evidence of a bulk phase transition in the lattice theory with dynamical Wilson fermions, and perform the technical steps necessary to set up future investigations of the mesonic spectrum of the full theory.

We discuss the determination of deep-inelastic hadron structure in lattice QCD. By using a fictitious heavy quark, direct calculations of the Compton scattering tensor can be performed in Euclidean space that allow the extraction of the moments of structure functions. This overcomes issues of operator mixing and renormalisation that have so far prohibited lattice computations of higher moments. This approach is especially suitable for the study of the twist-two contributions to isovector quark distributions, which is practical with current computing resources. While we focus on the isovector unpolarised distribution, our method is equally applicable to other quark distributions and to generalised parton distributions. By looking at matrix elements such as π ± |T [V µ (x)A ν (0)]|0 (where V µ and A ν are vector and axial-vector heavy-light currents) within the same formalism, moments of meson distribution amplitudes can also be extracted.

We perform lattice studies of meson mass spectra and decay constants of the Sp(4) gauge theory in the quenched approximation. We consider two species of (Dirac) fermions as matter field content, transforming in the 2-index antisymmetric and the fundamental representation of the gauge group, respectively. All matter fields are formulated as Wilson fermions. We extrapolate to the continuum and massless limits, and compare to each other the results obtained for the two species of mesons. In the case of two fundamental and three antisymmetric fermions, the long-distance dynamics is relevant for composite Higgs models. This is the first lattice study of this class of theories. The global SU (4) × SU (6) symmetry is broken to the Sp(4) × SO(6) subgroup, and the condensates align with the explicit mass terms present in the lattice formulation of the theory.The main results of our quenched calculations are that, with fermions in the 2-index antisymmetric representation of the group, the masses squared and decay constant squared of all the mesons we considered are larger than the corresponding quantities for the fundamental representation, by factors that vary between ∼ 1.2 and ∼ 2.7. We also present technical results that will be useful for future lattice investigations of dynamical simulations, of composite chimera baryons, and of the approach to large-N in the Sp(2N ) theories considered. We briefly discuss their high-temperature behaviour, where symmetry restoration and enhancement are expected. We acknowledge useful discussions withWe summarise in this Appendix our conventions in the treatment of spinors, which are useful, for example, in switching between the 2-component and the 4-component notation (see also Ref. [50]). The former is best suited to highlight the symmetries of the system, while the latter is the formalism adopted as a starting point for the lattice numerical

We report the masses of the lightest spin-0 and spin-2 glueballs obtained in an extensive lattice study of the continuum and infinite volume limits of SpðN c Þ gauge theories for N c ¼ 2, 4, 6, 8. We also extrapolate the combined results toward the large-N c limit. We compute the ratio of scalar and tensor masses, and observe evidence that this ratio is independent of N c. Other lattice studies of Yang-Mills theories at the same space-time dimension provide a compatible ratio. We further compare these results to various analytical ones and discuss them in view of symmetry-based arguments related to the breaking of scale invariance in the underlying dynamics, showing that a constant ratio might emerge in a scenario in which the 0 þþ glueball is interpreted as a dilaton state.