The strange quark mass in lattice QCD

The strange quark is a fundamental particle in the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, and the mass of the strange quark is one of the basic parameters in that Model. Because strange quarks only exist within composite objects called hadrons, the numerical value of the strange quark mass can only be inferred from measurements of hadron masses.;This thesis determines the strange quark mass from numerical simulations using lattice quantum chromodynanrics. The main task in the thesis is to perform the analytic calculation, using first-order perturbation theory, that relates the quark mass to a hadron mass for the twisted mass lattice action. By comparing these results to the known results from other lattice actions, the thesis concludes that the theoretical advantages of the twisted mass action do not translate into practical advantages for the determination of the strange quark mass.