Staggered Chiral Perturbation Theory for All-Staggered Heavy-Light Mesons

In HISQ simulations by the MILC and Fermilab Lattice collaborations, both the light quarks and the charm quark are staggered. We extend staggered chiral perturbation theory (S χ PT) to include such all-staggered heavy-light mesons. We assume that the heavy quark action is sufficiently improved that we may take am Q << 1 (where m Q is the heavy quark mass), but also that m Q >> Λ QCD so that a continuum heavy quark expansion is appropriate. Using this S χ PT, the leptonic decay constant of the heavy-light meson is calculated at next-to-leading-order. The pattern of taste splittings in the heavy-light meson masses is also investigated. c Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence.