Curved domain-wall fermions

Abstract

We consider fermion systems on a square lattice with a mass term having a curved domain-wall. Similarly to the conventional flat domain-wall fermions, massless and chiral edge states appear on the wall. In the cases of $S^1$ and $S^2$ domain-walls embedded into flat hypercubic lattices, we find that these edge modes feel gravity through the induced Spin or Spin${}^c$ connections. The gravitational effect is encoded in the Dirac eigenvalue spectrum as a gap from zero. In the standard continuum extrapolation of the square lattice, we find a good agreement with the analytic prediction in the continuum theory. We also find that the rotational symmetry of the edge modes is automatically recovered in the continuum limit.

Comments: 24 pages, 12 figures, minor corrections, to appear in PTEP