Staggered Fermions with Chiral Anomaly Cancellation

As a first step towards constructing chiral models on the lattice with staggered fermions, we study a U(1) model with axial-vector coupling to an external gauge field in two dimensions. In our approach gauge invariance is broken, but it is restored in the classical continuum limit. We find that the continuum divergence relations for the vector and axial-vector currents are reproduced, up to contact terms, which we determine analytically. The current divergence relations are a...

I present the recent developments in a specific sub-field of chiral gauge theories on the lattice. This sub-field pertains to the use of infinitely many fermi fields to describe a single chiral field. In this approach, both anomalous and anomaly free theories can be discussed in equal footing. It produces the correct anomaly in the continuum limit. It has the potential to describe fermion number violating processes in the presence of a gauge field background with non-trivial ...

We propose a formulation of lattice fermions with one-sided differences that is hermitian, chirally symmetric (barring a bare mass term) and completely free of doubling. To obtain the axial anomaly in perturbation theory it was necessary to break chiral symmetry on the lattice only through a bare mass term for the physical fermion. The chiral limit may be taken once the continuum limit is reached. We comment on the role of the mass term with examples elsewhere in field theory...

A recently proposed formulation of chiral lattice gauge theories is reviewed, in which the locality and gauge invariance of the theory can be preserved if the fermion representation of the gauge group is anomaly-free.

Kaplan recently proposed a novel lattice chiral gauge theory in which the bare theory is defined on $(2n+1)$-dimensions, but the continuum theory emerges in $2n$-dimensions. We explore whether the resulting theory reproduces all the features of continuum chiral gauge theory in the case of two-dimensional axial Schwinger model. We find that one can arrange for the two-dimensional perturbation expansion to be reproduced successfully. However, the theory fails to reproduce the 2...

I discretize axion string configuration coupled to a Dirac fermion, which in the continuum binds a massless chiral fermion in its core when the winding is one. I show that such a configuration can host one or more chiral fermions when regulated on the lattice. Realization of these chiral fermions relies on the presence of Wilson-like terms similar to the Wilson term used in lattice domain wall fermions. The number of chiral fermions on the string jumps as the Wilson-like para...

The fermion bag is a powerful idea that helps to solve fermion lattice field theories using Monte Carlo methods. Some sign problems that had remained unsolved earlier can be solved within this framework. In this work we argue that the fermion bag also gives insight into a new mechanism of fermion mass generation, especially at strong couplings where fermion masses are related to the fermion bag size. On the other hand, chiral condensates arise due to zero modes in the Dirac o...

The chiral fermion model with local multifermion interactions proposed in Nucl. Phys. B486 (1997) 282 and Phys. Rev. D61 (2000) 054502 processes an exact SU_L(2) chiral gauge symmetry and SU_L(2) by U_R(1) chiral flavour symmetry on a lattice and a plausible scaling region for the target chiral gauge theory in the continuum limit. Following the previous analysis of massive and massless fermion spectra in the scaling region, we compute the coupling vertices between gauge field...

The $SU(N_f)_L \otimes SU(N_f)_R$ chiral symmetry of QCD is of central importance for the nonperturbative low-energy dynamics of light quarks and gluons. Lattice field theory provides a theoretical framework in which these dynamics can be studied from first principles. The implementation of chiral symmetry on the lattice is a nontrivial issue. In particular, local lattice fermion actions with the chiral symmetry of the continuum theory suffer from the fermion doubling problem...

We discuss the chiral fermion in the Hamiltonian formalism of lattice gauge theory. Although the naive chiral charge operator does not commute with the Hamiltonian, the commutable one can be defined for the overlap fermion. The eigenvalues of the energy and the chiral charge can be defined simultaneously. We study how the eigenvalue spectrum reflects chiral properties of systems, such as a chiral chemical potential and the axial anomaly. We also show that the Wilson fermion i...