
Infinite-Order Lattice Anomalies and CPT
Salvatore Pace, speaking in the Institute for Advanced Study's High Energy Theory Seminar in the Bloomberg Lecture Hall, argues that lattice CPT symmetry changes the mathematical character of a chiral anomaly. He starts from the order of a global symmetry's anomaly, the smallest number of copies of a system whose diagonal symmetry becomes anomaly-free, and notes that continuum perturbative anomalies have infinite order while many lattice anomalies do not. Working with the Onsager symmetry, a lattice stand-in for the chiral symmetry of a 1+1 dimensional massless Dirac fermion, he shows its anomaly is only order two. Imposing lattice CPT symmetry, he argues, enhances that anomaly to infinite order, bringing the lattice structure into closer agreement with the continuum chiral anomaly. The talk is based on work with Elijah Lew-Smith and Shu-Heng Shao and assumes familiarity with lattice field theory and anomaly matching.