English

Gaillard-Zumino non-invertible symmetries

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-12-05 v2

Abstract

We uncover an infinite class of novel zero-form non-invertible symmetries in a broad family of four-dimensional models, studied years ago by Gaillard and Zumino (GZ), which includes several extended supergravities as particular subcases. The GZ models consist of abelian gauge fields coupled to a neutral sector, typically including a set of scalars, whose equations of motion are classically invariant under a continuous group G\mathscr{G} acting on the electric and magnetic field strengths via symplectic transformations. The standard lore holds that, at the quantum level, these symmetries are broken to an integral subgroup GZ\mathscr{G}_\mathbb{Z}. We show that, in fact, a much larger subgroup GQ\mathscr{G}_\mathbb{Q} survives, albeit through non-invertible topological defects. We explicitly construct these defects and compute some of their fusion rules. As illustrative examples, we consider the axion-dilaton-Maxwell model and the bosonic sector of a class of N=2\mathcal{N}=2 supergravities of the kind that appear in type II Calabi-Yau compactifications. Finally, we comment on how (part of) these non-invertible zero-form symmetries can be broken by gauging the GZ\mathscr{G}_\mathbb{Z} subgroup of invertible symmetries.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.18997,
  title  = {Gaillard-Zumino non-invertible symmetries},
  author = {Fabio Apruzzi and Luca Martucci},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.18997},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

50 pages + appendices, 3 figures, fixed typos, references added