arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Martin Lüscher.
Contents: 1. Introduction, 2. Chiral gauge theories & the gauge anomaly, 3. The regularization problem, 4. Weyl fermions from 4+1 dimensions, 5. The Ginsparg-Wilson relation, 6. Gauge-invariant lattice regularization of anomaly-free theories.
In the framework of perturbation theory, it is possible to put chiral gauge theories on the lattice without violating the gauge symmetry or other fundamental principles, provided the fermion representation of the gauge group is anomaly-free. The basic elements of this construction (which starts from the Ginsparg-Wilson relation) are briefly recalled and the exact cancellation of the gauge anomaly, at any fixed value of the lattice spacing and for any compact gauge group, is then proved rigorously through a recursive procedure.
The two-body decay rate of a weakly decaying particle (such as the kaon) is shown to be proportional to the square of a well-defined transition matrix element in finite volume. Contrary to the physical amplitude, the latter can be extracted from finite-volume correlation functions in euclidean space without analytic continuation. The K -> pi pi transitions and other non-leptonic decays thus become accessible to established numerical techniques in lattice QCD.
The renormalization factor relating the bare to the renormalization group invariant quark masses is accurately calculated in quenched lattice QCD using a recursive finite-size technique. The result is presented in the form of a product of a universal factor times another factor, which depends on the details of the lattice theory but is easy to compute, since it does not involve any large scale differences. As a byproduct the Lambda-parameter of the theory is obtained with a total error of 8%.
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.
Starting from the Ginsparg-Wilson relation, a general construction of chiral gauge theories on the lattice is described. Local and global anomalies are easily discussed in this framework and a closed expression for the effective action can be obtained. Particular attention is paid to the non-abelian gauge anomaly, which is shown to be related to a local topological field on the lattice representing the Chern character in 4+2 dimensions.
It is shown that U(1) chiral gauge theories with anomaly-free multiplets of Weyl fermions can be put on the lattice without breaking the gauge invariance or violating any other fundamental principle. The Ginsparg-Wilson relation plays a key role in this construction, which is non-perturbative and includes all topological sectors of the theory in finite volume. In particular, the cancellation of the gauge anomaly and the absence of global topological obstructions can be established on the basis of this relation and the lattice symmetries alone.
The axial anomaly in abelian lattice gauge theories is shown to be equal to a simple quadratic expression in the gauge field tensor plus a removable divergence term if the lattice Dirac operator satisfies the Ginsparg-Wilson relation. The theorem is a consequence of the locality, the gauge invariance and the topological nature of the anomaly and does not refer to any other properties of the lattice theory.
The topics covered by the lectures include Symanzik's effective continuum theory, O(a) improvement, chiral symmetry on the lattice and non-perturbative renormalization.
It is shown that the Ginsparg-Wilson relation implies an exact symmetry of the fermion action, which may be regarded as a lattice form of an infinitesimal chiral rotation. Using this result it is straightforward to construct lattice Yukawa models with unbroken flavour and chiral symmetries and no doubling of the fermion spectrum. A contradiction with the Nielsen-Ninomiya theorem is avoided, because the chiral symmetry is realized in a different way than has been assumed when proving the theorem.
A finite-size technique is employed to compute the normalization constant $Z_A$ of the isovector axial current in lattice QCD. The calculation is carried out in the quenched approximation for values of the bare gauge coupling $g_0$ ranging from 0 to 1. In the lattice action and the lattice expression for the axial current we include the counterterms required for O(a) improvement, with non-perturbatively determined coefficients. With little additional work the normalization constant $Z_V$ of the improved isospin current is also obtained.
Following Symanzik we argue that the Schrödinger functional in lattice gauge theories without matter fields has a well-defined continuum limit. Due to gauge invariance no extra counter terms are required. The Schrödinger functional is, moreover, accessible to numerical simulations. It may hence be used to study the scaling properties of the theory and in particular the evolution of the renormalized gauge coupling from low to high energies. A concrete proposition along this line is made and the necessary perturbative analysis of the Schrödinger functional is carried through to 1-loop order.
A finite-size scaling technique is applied to the SU(2) gauge theory (without matter fields) to compute a non-perturbatively defined running coupling alpha(q) for a range of momenta q given in units of the string tension K. We find that already at rather low q, the evolution of alpha(q) is well described by the 2-loop approximation to the Callan-Symanzik beta-function. At the highest momentum reached, q=20 sqrt(K), we obtain alpha_MSbar(q)=0.187 +/- 0.005 +/- 0.009 for the running coupling in the MSbar scheme of dimensional regularization.