We report a state-of-the-art lattice QCD calculation of the isovector quark transversity distribution of the proton in the continuum and physical mass limit using large-momentum effective theory. The calculation is done at four lattice spacings $a=\{0.098,0.085,0.064,0.049\}$ fm and various pion masses ranging between $220$ and $350$ MeV, with the proton momenta up to $2.8$ GeV. The result is non-perturbatively renormalized in the hybrid scheme with self renormalization which treats the infrared physics at large correlation distance properly, and extrapolated to the continuum, physical mass and infinite momentum limit. We also compare with recent global analyses for the nucleon isovector quark transversity distribution.

Lattice field theory is a very powerful tool to study Feynman's path integral non-perturbatively. However, it usually requires Euclidean background metrics to be well-defined. On the other hand, a recently developed regularization scheme based on Fourier integral operator $\zeta$-functions can treat Feynman's path integral non-pertubatively in Lorentzian background metrics. In this article, we formally $\zeta$-regularize lattice theories with Lorentzian backgrounds and identify conditions for the Fourier integral operator $\zeta$-function regularization to be applicable. Furthermore, we show that the classical limit of the $\zeta$-regularized theory is independent of the regularization. Finally, we consider the harmonic oscillator as an explicit example. We discuss multiple options for the regularization and analytically show that they all reproduce the correct ground state energy on the lattice and in the continuum limit. Additionally, we solve the harmonic oscillator on the lattice in Minkowski background numerically.

In this study, we discuss the magnetic moment of $P_{cs}(4338)$ and $P_{cs}(4459)$ hidden-charmed molecular pentaquarks, which are closely related to their substructures. The magnetic moments of these states are calculated with the help of the light-cone sum rules method with quantum numbers $I(J^P) = 0(1/2^-)$ and $I(J^P) = 0(3/2^-)$ for $P_{cs}(4338)$ and $P_{cs}(4459)$, respectively. Our prediction for the magnetic moment $\mu_{P_{cs}} = 0.34 \pm 0.12~\mu_N$ for the $P_{cs}(4338)$ state and $\mu_{P_{cs}} = -1.67 \pm 0.58~\mu_N $ for the $P_{cs}(4459)$ state. As a byproduct, the magnetic moments of the isospin$-1$ partners of these states have been also obtained. The magnetic moment are obtained as $\mu_{P_{cs}} = 0.63 \pm 0.21~\mu_N$ and $\mu_{P_{cs}} = -3.33 \pm 1.04 ~\mu_N $ for the isospin-1 partners of the $P_{cs}(4338)$ and $P_{cs}(4459)$ states, respectively. Our results regarding the magnetic moments of these molecular pentaquark states are compared with the results in the literature.

The theory of the strong force, quantum chromodynamics, describes the proton in terms of quarks and gluons. The proton is a state of two up quarks and one down quark bound by gluons, but quantum theory predicts that in addition there is an infinite number of quark-antiquark pairs. Both light and heavy quarks, whose mass is respectively smaller or bigger than the mass of the proton, are revealed inside the proton in high-energy collisions. However, it is unclear whether heavy quarks also exist as a part of the proton wavefunction, which is determined by non-perturbative dynamics and accordingly unknown: so-called intrinsic heavy quarks. It has been argued for a long time that the proton could have a sizable intrinsic component of the lightest heavy quark, the charm quark. Innumerable efforts to establish intrinsic charm in the proton have remained inconclusive. Here we provide evidence for intrinsic charm by exploiting a high-precision determination of the quark-gluon content of the nucleon based on machine learning and a large experimental dataset. We disentangle the intrinsic charm component from charm-anticharm pairs arising from high-energy radiation. We establish the existence of intrinsic charm at the 3-standard-deviation level, with a momentum distribution in remarkable agreement with model predictions. We confirm these findings by comparing to very recent data on Z-boson production with charm jets from the LHCb experiment.