English

Geometric Categories for Continuous Gauging

Mathematical Physics 2026-01-26 v3 Strongly Correlated Electrons High Energy Physics - Theory Algebraic Geometry Category Theory math.MP

Abstract

We develop a unified categorical framework for gauging both continuous and finite symmetries in arbitrary spacetime dimensions. Our construction applies to geometric categories i.e. categories internal to stacks. This generalizes the familiar setting of fusion categories, which describe finite group symmetries, to the case of Lie group symmetries. Within this framework, we obtain a functorial Symmetry Topological Field Theory together with its natural boundaries, allowing us to compute associated endomorphism categories and Drinfeld centers in a uniform way. For a given symmetry group GG, our framework recovers the electric and magnetic higher-form symmetries expected in GG-gauge theory. Moreover, it naturally encodes electric breaking symmetry in the presence of charged matter, reproducing known physical phenomena in a categorical setting.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.08254,
  title  = {Geometric Categories for Continuous Gauging},
  author = {Devon Stockall and Matthew Yu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.08254},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

33 pages. Version 3. Added references. Corrected the physical interpretation of the fiber of the bulk-boundary map. Comments welcome

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:32:08.094Z