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I cannot understand the connection between the Grassmann variable and fermion in the derivation of path integral. I well understood the definition of an integral over a Grassmann variable but I still have some difficulties connecting it with fermions. To better explain my problem if we want to integrate over two real Grassmann variables $\theta_1$ and $\theta_2$ and we want to complexify it, we do the following,

$$\int d\theta_1 d\theta_2 ... \rightarrow \int d\theta d\bar{\theta}... $$ where $\theta = \theta_1 + i \theta_2$ and $\bar{\theta} = \theta_1 - i \theta_2$. Now my problem arises, usually I see a direct connection between $\theta\rightarrow \psi$ and $\bar{\theta}\rightarrow \bar{\psi}$ where $\psi$ now is my fermionic field. The problem is that due to the Grassmann algebra $\{\theta,\bar{\theta}\}=0$, but this is not true for my fermionic field. Where I'm wrong?

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  • $\begingroup$ I can't answer this question fully because I'm not used to the exactly the set-up you're talking about, but in the examples which I do understand the key point is that while the map between Grassmann variables and fermion operators doesn't preserve products (because as you say the anticommutator is wrong) it does get inner products right (i.e. its a linear isometry of inner product spaces), and the expectation values you're interested in computing are actually expressible as inner products. $\endgroup$
    – ors
    Commented Jun 3 at 15:19

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The fields inside the path integral and inside time-ordered correlator functions supercommute, so that's not an issue.

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