Anomaly Cancellations on Lower-Dimensional Hypersurfaces by Inflow from the Bulk
Abstract
Lower-dimensional (hyper)surfaces that can carry gauge or gauge/gravitational anomalies occur in many areas of physics: one-plus-one-dimensional boundaries or two-dimensional defect surfaces in condensed matter systems, four-dimensional brane-worlds in higher-dimensional cosmologies or various branes and orbifold planes in string or M-theory. In all cases we may have (quantum) anomalies localized on these hypersurfaces that are only cancelled by ``anomaly inflow'' from certain topological interactions in the bulk. Proper cancellation between these anomaly contributions of different origin requires a careful treatment of factors and signs. We review in some detail how these contributions occur and discuss applications in condensed matter (Quantum Hall Effect) and M-theory (five-branes and orbifold planes)
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-th/0409028,
title = {Anomaly Cancellations on Lower-Dimensional Hypersurfaces by Inflow from the Bulk},
author = {Adel Bilal},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0409028},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
39 pages, to appear in: From Fields to Strings: Circumnavigating Theoretical Physics, Ian Kogan Memorial Volume