Generalized symmetries and emergence in axion effective field theories
High Energy Physics - Theory
2026-04-15 v1
Abstract
We study the phenomenological consequences of higher symmetry structures in axion effective field theories. Higher-group and non-invertible symmetries impose parametric constraints on the energy scales at which different symmetries can emerge in the infrared, providing a guide to the ultraviolet physics. We clarify and analyze these emergence constraints in axion EFTs coupled to abelian and non-abelian gauge bosons, with and without charged matter. We show that emergence constraints are universally saturated by anomaly inflow onto topological defects, while in perturbative UV completions they are supererogatory owing to the parametric separation of scales.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.11877,
title = {Generalized symmetries and emergence in axion effective field theories},
author = {Dan Sehayek and Nathaniel Craig},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.11877},
year = {2026}
}