
Chiral Lattice Gauge Theories from Symmetry Disentanglers
Lukasz Fidkowski, from the University of Washington, presents an IAS High Energy Theory Seminar on a Hamiltonian approach to putting chiral gauge theories on the lattice. The method relies on symmetry disentanglers, constant-depth circuits of local unitaries that turn not-on-site symmetries into on-site ones, which then allows standard lattice gauging techniques to apply. Working with lattice rotor models, Fidkowski builds U(1) symmetric theories with mixed t Hooft anomalies in 1+1 and 3+1 spacetime dimensions, showing that disentanglers exist precisely when anomalies cancel. He walks through an exactly solvable lattice Hamiltonian for the 1+1 dimensional 3450 chiral gauge theory and sketches how a parallel construction might apply to the U(1) hypercharge symmetry of Standard Model fermions. The talk is aimed at specialists in lattice field theory and anomaly cancellation, framed as a step toward fully local, nonperturbative formulations of chiral gauge theories.