Flux Quantization
Abstract
Flux- and charge-quantization laws for higher gauge fields of Maxwell type -- e.g. the common electromagnetic field (the "A-field") but also the B-, RR-, and C-fields considered in string/M-theory -- specify non-perturbative completions of these fields by encoding their solitonic behaviour and hence by specifying the discrete charges carried by the individual branes (higher-dimensional monopoles or solitons) that source the field fluxes. This article surveys the general (rational-)homotopy theoretic understanding of flux- and charge-quantization via the Chern-Dold character map generalized to the non-linear (self-sourcing) Bianchi identities that appear in higher-dimensional supergravity theories, notably for B&RR-fields in D=10, for the C-field in D=11 supergravity, and for the B-field on fivebrane worldvolumes.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2402.18473,
title = {Flux Quantization},
author = {Hisham Sati and Urs Schreiber},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.18473},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
34+6 pages, many figures; v2: published version, commissioned for the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics 2nd ed