Spectrum of QCD with one flavor: A window for supersymmetric dynamics

We compute the spectrum of the low-lying mesonic states with vector, scalar and pseudoscalar quantum numbers in QCD with one flavor. With three colors the fundamental and the two-index antisymmetric representations of the gauge group coincide. The latter is an orientifold theory that maps into the bosonic sector of N=1 super Yang-Mills theory in the large number of colors limit. We employ Wilson fermions along with tree-level improvement in the gluonic and fermionic parts of the action. In this setup the Dirac operator can develop real negative eigenvalues. We therefore perform a detailed study in order to identify configurations where the fermion determinant is negative and eventually reweight them. We finally compare results with effective field theory predictions valid in the large NC limit and find reasonably consistent values despite NC being only three. Additionally, the spin-one sector provides a novel window for supersymmetric dynamics.