From enemies to friends: chiral symmetry on the lattice

Abstract

The physics of strong interactions is invariant under the exchange of left-handed and right-handed quarks, at least in the massless limit. This invariance is reflected in the chiral symmetry of quantum chromodynamics. Surprisingly, it has become clear only recently how to implement this important symmetry in lattice formulations of quantum field theories. We will discuss realizations of exact lattice chiral symmetry and give an example of the computation of a physical observable in quantum chromodynamics where chiral symmetry is important. This calculation is performed by relying on finite size scaling methods as predicted by chiral perturbation theory.