Chiral fermions on the lattice

Abstract

We discuss topological obstructions to putting chiral fermions on an even dimensional lattice. The setting includes Ginsparg-Wilson fermions, but is more general. We prove a theorem which relates the total chirality to the difference of generalised winding numbers of chiral projection operators. For an odd number of Weyl fermions this implies that particles and anti-particles live in topologically different spaces.

Comments: 16 pages, latex, no figures