Non-positive fermion determinants in lattice supersymmetry

Abstract

We find that fermion determinants are not generally positive in a recent class of constructions with explicit lattice supersymmetry. These involve an orbifold of supersymmetric matrix models, and have as their target (continuum) theory (2,2) 2-dimensional super-Yang-Mills. The fermion determinant is shown to be identically zero for all boson configurations due to the existence of a zeromode fermion inherited from the "mother theory." Once this eigenvalue is factored out, the fermion determinant generically has arbitrary complex phase. We discuss the implications of this result for simulation of the models.