η and η' mesons from lattice QCD.

The large mass of the ninth pseudoscalar meson, the η', is believed to arise from the combined effects of the axial anomaly and the gauge field topology present in QCD. We report a realistic, 2 + 1-flavor, lattice QCD calculation of the η and η' masses and mixing which confirms this picture. The physical eigenstates show small octet-singlet mixing with a mixing angle of 0 = -14.1(2.8)° . Extrapolation to the physical light quark mass gives, with statistical errors only, m η = 573(6) MeV and m η' = 947(142) MeV, consistent with the experimental values of 548 and 958 MeV.