Elusive anomalies

Abstract

Usually, in order to compute an anomaly (be it chiral or trace) with a perturbative method, the lowest significant order is sufficient. With the help of gauge or diffeomorphism invariance it uniquely identifies the anomaly. This note is a short review of the ambiguities that arise in the calculation of trace anomalies, and is meant, in particular, to signal cases in which the lowest perturbative order is not enough to unambiguously identify a trace anomaly. This may shed light on some recent contradictory results.

arXiv comment12 pages, reference added

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Trace Anomaly of Weyl Fermions via the Path Integral
• Universal definition of the non-conformal trace anomaly