The Tunneling Hybrid Monte-Carlo algorithm

The hermitian Wilson kernel used in the construction of the domain-wall and overlap Dirac operators has exceptionally small eigenvalues that make it expensive to reach high-quality chiral symmetry for domain-wall fermions, or high precision in the case of the overlap operator. An efficient way of suppressing such eigenmodes consists of including a positive power of the determinant of the Wilson kernel in the Boltzmann weight, but doing this also suppresses tunneling between topological sectors. Here we propose a modification of the Hybrid Monte-Carlo algorithm which aims to restore tunneling between topological sectors by excluding the lowest eigenmodes of the Wilson kernel from the molecular-dynamics evolution, and correcting for this at the accept/reject step. We discuss the implications of this modification for the acceptance rate.Comment: improved discussion in appendix B, RevTeX, 19 page

Chiral Fermions on the Lattice through Gauge Fixing -- Perturbation Theory

We study the gauge-fixing approach to the construction of lattice chiral gauge theories in one-loop weak-coupling perturbation theory. We show how infrared properties of the gauge degrees of freedom determine the nature of the continuous phase transition at which we take the continuum limit. The fermion self-energy and the vacuum polarization are calculated, and confirm that, in the abelian case, this approach can be used to put chiral gauge theories on the lattice in four dimensions. We comment on the generalization to the nonabelian case.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, two refs. adde

Mobility edge in lattice QCD

We determine the location $\lambda_c$ of the mobility edge in the spectrum of the hermitian Wilson operator on quenched ensembles. We confirm a theoretical picture of localization proposed for the Aoki phase diagram. When $\lambda_c>0$ we also determine some key properties of the localized eigenmodes with eigenvalues $|\lambda|<\lambda_c$. Our results lead to simple tests for the validity of simulations with overlap and domain-wall fermions.Comment: revtex, 4 pages, 1 figure, minor change

A simple derivation of the Overlap Dirac Operator

We derive the vector-like four dimensional overlap Dirac operator starting from a five dimensional Dirac action in the presence of a delta-function space-time defect. The effective operator is obtained by first integrating out all the fermionic modes in the fixed gauge background, and then identifying the contribution from the localized modes as the determinant of an operator in one dimension less. We define physically relevant degrees of freedom on the defect by introducing an auxiliary defect-bound fermion field and integrating out the original five dimensional bulk field.Comment: 9 pages, LaTe

Perturbative study for domain-wall fermions in 4+1 dimensions

We investigate a U(1) chiral gauge model in 4+1 dimensions formulated on the lattice via the domain-wall method. We calculate an effective action for smooth background gauge fields at a fermion one loop level. From this calculation we discuss properties of the resulting 4 dimensional theory, such as gauge invariance of 2 point functions, gauge anomalies and an anomaly in the fermion number current.Comment: 39 pages incl. 9 figures, REVTeX+epsf, uuencoded Z-compressed .tar fil

Before sailing on a domain-wall sea

We discuss the very different roles of the valence-quark and the sea-quark residual masses ($m_{res}^v$ and $m_{res}^s$) in dynamical domain-wall fermions simulations. Focusing on matrix elements of the effective weak hamiltonian containing a power divergence, we find that $m_{res}^v$ can be a source of a much bigger systematic error. To keep all systematic errors due to residual masses at the 1% level, we estimate that one needs $a m_{res}^s \le 10^{-3}$ and $a m_{res}^v \le 10^{-5}$, at a lattice spacing $a\sim 0.1$ fm. The practical implications are that (1) optimal use of computer resources calls for a mixed scheme with different domain-wall fermion actions for the valence and sea quarks; (2) better domain-wall fermion actions are needed for both the sea and the valence sectors.Comment: latex, 25 pages. Improved discussion in appendix, including correction of some technical mistakes; ref. adde

Chiral Fermions and Multigrid

Lattice regularization of chiral fermions is an important development of the theory of elementary particles. Nontheless, brute force computer simulations are very expensive, if not prohibitive. In this letter I exploit the non-interacting character of the lattice theory in the flavor space and propose a multigrid approach for the simulation of the theory. Already a two-grid algorithm saves an order of magnitude of computer time for fermion propagator calculations.Comment: Latex, 6 pages, 1 figur

The Phase Diagram and Spectrum of Gauge-Fixed Abelian Lattice Gauge Theory

We consider a lattice discretization of a covariantly gauge-fixed abelian gauge theory. The gauge fixing is part of the action defining the theory, and we study the phase diagram in detail. As there is no BRST symmetry on the lattice, counterterms are needed, and we construct those explicitly. We show that the proper adjustment of these counterterms drives the theory to a new type of phase transition, at which we recover a continuum theory of (free) photons. We present both numerical and (one-loop) perturbative results, and show that they are in good agreement near this phase transition. Since perturbation theory plays an important role, it is important to choose a discretization of the gauge-fixing action such that lattice perturbation theory is valid. Indeed, we find numerical evidence that lattice actions not satisfying this requirement do not lead to the desired continuum limit. While we do not consider fermions here, we argue that our results, in combination with previous work, provide very strong evidence that this new phase transition can be used to define abelian lattice chiral gauge theories.Comment: 42 pages, 30 figure

Distributed Relay Protocol for Probabilistic Information-Theoretic Security in a Randomly-Compromised Network

We introduce a simple, practical approach with probabilistic information-theoretic security to mitigate one of quantum key distribution's major limitations: the short maximum transmission distance (~200 km) possible with present day technology. Our scheme uses classical secret sharing techniques to allow secure transmission over long distances through a network containing randomly-distributed compromised nodes. The protocol provides arbitrarily high confidence in the security of the protocol, with modest scaling of resource costs with improvement of the security parameter. Although some types of failure are undetectable, users can take preemptive measures to make the probability of such failures arbitrarily small.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures; added proof of verification sub-protocol, minor correction

Remark on lattice BRST invariance

A recently claimed resolution to the lattice Gribov problem in the context of chiral lattice gauge theories is examined. Unfortunately, I find that the old problem remains.Comment: 4 pages, plain TeX, presentation improved (see acknowledgments