CMSA Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics: Chiral Fermions from Staggered Fields

CMSA EVENTS

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January 28, 2021 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
via Zoom Video Conferencing
Speaker:

Simon Catterall - Syracuse University

I describe a proposal for constructing lattice theories that target certain chiral gauge theories in the continuum limit. The models use reduced staggered fermions and employ site parity dependent Yukawa interactions of Fidkowski-Kitaev type to gap a subset of the lattice fermions without breaking symmetries. I show how the structure of these interactions is determined by a certain topological anomaly which is captured exactly by the generalizations of staggered fermions to triangulations of arbitrary topology. In the continuum limit the construction yields a set of sixteen Weyl fermions in agreement both with results from condensed matter physics and arguments rooted in the Dai-Freed theorem.  Finally, I point out the connection to the Pati-Salam GUT model.

Zoom: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/977347126