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A study of the radiative transition $ππ\to πγ^{*}$ with lattice QCD

Lattice QCD calculations of radiative transitions between hadrons have in the past been limited to processes of hadrons stable under the strong interaction. Recently developed methods for $1\to2$ transition matrix elements in a finite volume now enable the determination of radiative decay rates of strongly unstable particles. Our lattice QCD study focuses on the process $ππ\to πγ^{*}$, where the $ρ$ meson is present as an enhancement in the cross-section. We use $2+1$ flavors of clover fermions at a pion mass of approximately $320$ MeV and a lattice size of approximately $3.6$ fm. The required $2$-point and $3$-point correlation functions are constructed from a set of forward, sequential and stochastic light quark propagators. In addition to determining the $ρ$ meson resonance parameters via the Lüscher method, the scattering phase shift is used in conjunction with the $1\to2$ transition matrix element formalism of Briceño, Hansen and Walker-Loud to compute the $ππ\toπγ^{*}$ amplitude at several values of the momentum transfer and $ππ$ invariant mass.