Strong-isospin violation in the neutron-proton mass difference from fully-dynamical lattice QCD and PQQCD

We determine the strong-isospin violating component of the neutron-proton mass difference from fully-dynamical lattice QCD and partially-quenched QCD calculations of the nucleon mass, constrained by partially-quenched chiral perturbation theory at one-loop level. The lattice calculations were performed with domain-wall valence quarks on MILC lattices with rooted staggered sea-quarks at a lattice spacing of b=0.125 fm, lattice spatial size of L=2.5 fm and pion masses ranging from mπ∼290 MeV to ∼350 MeV. At the physical value of the pion mass, we predict Mn−Mp|d−u=2.26±0.57±0.42±0.10 MeV where the first error is statistical, the second error is due to the uncertainty in the ratio of light-quark masses, η=mu/md, determined by MILC [C. Aubin, et al., MILC Collaboration, Phys. Rev. D 70 (2004) 114501, hep-lat/0407028], and the third error is an estimate of the systematic due to chiral extrapolation.