Fermionic sign

A fermionic sign is a factor $-1$ produced whenever two Grassmann-odd fields or fermionic creation and annihilation operators are interchanged. Relative signs between diagrams must be computed after putting every external fermion operator into one common order.

In a Dirac field mode expansion, the antiparticle contribution to $\bar{\psi }\Gamma \psi$ first appears with operator order $d{d}^{†}$. Normal ordering changes it to $-d^{†}d$ using the fermionic anticommutation relations. Thus its scattering coefficient is $-{\bar{v}}_{\mathrm{in}}\Gamma v_{\mathrm{out}}$. Pair-annihilation and creation terms have the operator orders $db$ and $b^{†}{d}^{†}$. Keeping these orders and a fixed external-state convention determines interference signs, especially between exchange and annihilation graphs in a Yukawa interaction.