The Absence of Ultralocal Ginsparg-Wilson Fermions

Abstract

It was shown recently by I. Horvath that lattice fermions obeying the standard form of the Ginsparg-Wilson relation cannot be ultralocal. However, there are more general forms of the Ginsparg-Wilson relation, which also guarantee the physical properties related to chirality, but which are not covered by Horvath's consideration. Here we present a proof which applies to all Ginsparg-Wilson fermions, demonstrating that they can only be local in the sense of an exponential decay of their couplings, but not ultralocal.