Non-perturbative renormalization factors of bilinear quark operators for Kogut-Susskind fermions and light quark masses in quenched QCD

Light quark masses are computed for Kogut-Susskind fermions by evaluating non-perturbatively the renormalization factor for bilinear quark operators. Calculations are carried out in the quenched approximation at \beta=6.0, 6.2, and 6.4. For the average up and down quark mass we find $m_{\bar MS}(2 GeV)= 4.15(27) MeV$ in the continuum limit, which is significantly larger than $3.51(20) MeV$ ($q^*=1/a$) or $3.40(21) MeV$ ($q^*=\pi/a$) obtained with the one-loop perturbative renormalization factor.