Geometrical aspects of chiral anomalies in the overlap

Abstract

The set of one dimensional lowest energy eigenspaces used to construct the overlap induces a two form on gauge orbit space which is the locally exact curl of Berry's connection. If anomalies do not cancel, examples of two dimensional closed sub-manifolds of orbit space are produced over which the integral of the above two form does not vanish. Based on these observations, a natural definition of covariant currents is obtained, a simple way to calculate chiral anomalies on the lattice is found, and indications for how to construct an ideal regularization of chiral gauge theories are seen to emerge.