Electromagnetic Form Factors Of The B Meson

Abstract

We provide a brief introduction to quantum field theories through the example of the Klein-Gordon scalar field both via canonical quantization and the path integral formulation. Next, we introduce the formalism of quantum chromodynamics, the quantum field theory of quarks and their interaction via the strong force. Here we demonstrate how to compute the quark field portion of n-point correlation functions and describe the lattice computation behind evaluating the remaining path integral over the gluon gauge field. In this thesis, we apply these methods to compute the b quark contribution to the electromagnetic form factor of the B meson. From the form factor, we extract the b quark contribution to the root mean square charge radius of the B meson and report this to be rRMS = 0.349 ± 0.95 fm.