We study the transfer matrix for domain wall fermions to understand the origin and significance of oscillatory contributions to hadron correlation functions that arise for M >1. For a free particle in one space, one time, and one flavor dimension, th
e eigenmodes of the one-body operator appearing in the transfer matrix are calculated, and the role of the negative eigenmodes arising when M > 1 is studied. In the case of three space dimensions, oscillatory behavior for hadron correlation functions in QCD is shown to emerge for free fermions when M exceeds 1, and to increase with increasing M. Analogous behavior is observed for domain wall fermions on HYP smeared MILC lattices, and a procedure is demonstrated for subtracting oscillating terms from physical observables.
