Decay constants of the pion and its excitations on the lattice

We present a calculation using lattice QCD of the ratios of decay constants of the excited states of the pion, to that of the pion ground state, at three values of the pion mass between 400 and 700 MeV, using an anisotropic clover fermion action with three flavors of quarks. We find that the decay constant of the first excitation, and more notably of the second, is suppressed with respect to that of the ground-state pion, but that the suppression shows little dependence on the quark mass. The strong suppression of the decay constant of the second excited state is consistent with its interpretation as a predominantly hybrid state.