Trace Anomaly in Geometric Discretization

Abstract

I develop the simplest geometric-discretized analogue of two dimensional scalar field theory, which qualitatively reproduces the trace anomaly of the continuous theory. The discrete analogue provides an interpretation of the trace anomaly in terms of a non-trivial transformation of electric-magnetic duality-invariant modes of resistor networks that accommodate both electric and magnetic charge currents.

10 pages

References in corpus (6)

• R-torsion and linking numbers from simplicial abelian gauge theories
• A doubled discretisation of abelian Chern-Simons theory
• Notes on simplicial BF theory
• A Gravitational Effective Action on a Finite Triangulation
• A Cubic Whitney and Further Developments in Geometric Discretisation
• A Gravitational Effective Action on a Finite Triangulation as a Discrete Model of Continuous Concepts