Drawing on experimental data for baryon resonances, Hamiltonian effective field theory (HEFT) is used to predict the positions of the finite-volume energy levels to be observed in lattice QCD simulations of the lowest-lying $J^P=1/2^{-}$ nucleon excitation. In the initial analysis, the phenomenological parameters of the Hamiltonian model are constrained by experiment and the finite-volume eigenstate energies are a prediction of the model. The agreement between HEFT predictions and lattice QCD results obtained on volumes with spatial lengths of 2 and 3 fm is excellent. These lattice results also admit a more conventional analysis where the low-energy coefficients are constrained by lattice QCD results, enabling a determination of resonance properties from lattice QCD itself. Finally, the role and importance of various components of the Hamiltonian model are examined.

• Received 2 December 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.082004