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Chiral anomalies and Wilson fermions

Michael Creutz*

  • *Contact author: mike@latticeguy.net
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 074516 – Published 21 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pbpl-5wdb

Abstract

The Wilson formulation of fermions in lattice gauge theory provides a unified description of the chiral anomalies in the standard model. The discrete Dirac operator diagonalizes into a series of 2×2 blocks. In each block the possible eigenvalues either form a complex pair or separate into two real eigenvalues that have specific chirality. The collision of these pairs of eigenvalues occurs outside the perturbative region and provides a path between topological sectors.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 074516– Published 21 April, 2026
  • Received 4 December 2025
  • Accepted 2 March 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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