English

Higher form symmetries, membranes and flux quantization

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-04-14 v3 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

Higher Forms Symmetries (HFS) of a closed bosonic M2-brane theory formulated on a compactified target space M9×T2\mathcal{M}_9 \times T^2 are obtained. We show that the cancellation of the 't Hooft anomaly present in the theory is related to a 3-form flux with G1\mathcal{G}_1^{\nabla}-gerbe structure associated to the world-volume flux quantization condition. A Wilson surface is naturally introduced on the topological operator that characterize the holonomy of the M2-brane. The projection of the flux quantization condition inherited from the gerbe structure onto the spatial part of the worldvolume, leads to a flux quantization on the M2-brane. The topological operators realise discrete symmetries associated with the winding and the flux/monopole condition. The algebra of operators is well defined.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.14051,
  title  = {Higher form symmetries, membranes and flux quantization},
  author = {F. Caro-Perez and M. P. Garcia del Moral and A. Restuccia},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.14051},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Latex, 21 pages, Writing has been improved in order to clarify the content, keeping the results unchanged. Typos have been corrected