Chiral Gauge Theories in the Overlap Formalism

Abstract

The overlap formula for the chiral determinant is presented and the realization of gauge anomalies and gauge field toplogy in this context is discussed. The ability of the overlap formalism to deal with supersymmetric theories and Majorana-Weyl fermions is outlined. Two applications of the overlap formalism are discussed in some detail. One application is the computation of a fermion number violating process in a two dimensional U(1) chiral gauge theory. The second application is a measurement of the probability ditribution of the index of the chiral Dirac operator in four dimensional pure SU(2) lattice gauge theory.