Renormalization of matter field theories on the lattice and the flow equation

Abstract We give a new proof of the renormalizability of a class of matter field theories on a space-time lattice; in particular we consider Φ 4 and massive Yukawa theories with Wilson fermions. We use the Polchinski approach to renormalization, which is based on the Wilson flow equation; this approach is substantially simpler than the BPHZ method, applied to the lattice by Reisz. We discuss matter theories with staggered fermions. In particular we analyse a simple kind of staggered fermions with minimal doubling, using which we prove the renormalizability of a chiral sigma model with exact chiral symmetry on the lattice.