The primary goal of this project is the reconstruction of quarkonium spectral functions from thermal lattice correlators, relevant for the study of Quark-Gluon Plasma in heavy-ion collisions. To this end, we pursue the generation of fully dynamical anisotropic HISQ (aHISQ) ensembles, aiming at a physical strange quark and a heavier-than-physical light quark mass, corresponding to a 300 MeV continuum pion mass. We report on tuning the gauge anisotropy and the lattice spacing of anisotropic pure gauge ensembles with the tree-level Symanzik-improved action using the gradient flow and compare various tuning schemes. We also discuss the simultaneous tuning of the strange quark mass and the quark anisotropy with aHISQ, using spectrum measurements on quenched ensembles. We compare different ways to tune the quark anisotropy and discuss pion taste splittings for aHISQ at anisotropies up to 8. Finally, we present the expressions for the aHISQ fermion force required for dynamical simulations.

We investigate the nucleon and pion gravitational $D$-form factors, by fitting a $\sigma/f_0(500)$-meson pole, together with a background term, to lattice data at $m_\pi \approx 170\text{MeV}$. We find that the fitted residues are compatible with predictions from dilaton effective theory. In this framework, the $\sigma$-meson takes on the role of the dilaton, the Goldstone boson of spontaneously broken scale symmetry. These results support the idea that QCD may be governed by an infrared fixed point and offer a physical interpretation of the $D$-form factor (or $D$-term) in the soft limit.

Four-dimensional chiral gauge theory can be formulated as the boundary theory on a five-dimensional manifold in a manner that may be realized on a finite lattice. There are interesting features of these theories which defy a purely four-dimensional conception of universality. We find that QCD when embedded in a chiral gauge theory (the Standard Model) and regulated this way appears to suffer neither from a $U(1)_A$ problem nor a strong $CP$ problem, with a central role played by fermion zeromodes localized far away in the fifth dimension. In this way it differs from conventional lattice QCD formulated as a stand-alone theory. Our analysis builds on recent work by others that highlights the role of global $U(1)$ symmetries in five dimensional formulations of four-dimensional chiral gauge theories, and the generic appearance of fermion zeromodes in the bulk.