INTUITIVE UNDERSTANDING OF ANOMALIES A PARADOX WITH REGULARIZATION

Abstract

An intuitive way of looking at the Adler Bell Jackiw anomaly is reviewed and elaborated. The main point is that the created particles are “in reality” being pumped up from the Dirac sea. This point of view is related to the troubles with regularizing in a chirally invariant way. This problem is stressed as a major paradox on a somewhat analogous footing with the paradox of having simultaneity to the understanding of special relativity. A way out proposed by Eichten and Preskill is discussed, but its ability to really solve the problem remains unclear.