Physical observables from boundary artifacts: scalar glueball in Yang-Mills theory

By relating the functional averages of a generic scalar operator in simulations with Open (O) and Periodic (P) boundary conditions (BCs) respectively for $SU(3)$ lattice gauge theory, we show that the scalar glueball mass and the glueball to vacuum matrix element can be extracted very efficiently from the former. Numerical results are compared with those extracted from the two point function of the time slice energy density (both PBC and OBC). The scaling properties of the mass and the matrix element are studied with the help of Wilson (gradient) flow.