English

Non-invertible defects from the Conway SCFT to K3 sigma models II: duality and Fibonacci defects

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-12-23 v1 Quantum Algebra

Abstract

We continue the study, initiated in [hep-th:2504.18619], of topological defect lines (TDLs) in the Conway module VfV^{f \natural} and K3 non-linear sigma models (NLSMs). In the case of VfV^{f \natural}, we fully classify the potential N=1N=1 (and N=4N=4)--preserving duality defects for cyclic Tambara--Yamagami categories TY(ZN)(\mathbb{Z}_N), noting a curious relation to genus zero groups of monstrous moonshine. We use the correspondence with Leech lattice endomorphisms, discovered in [hep-th:2504.18619], to construct a number of non-trivial examples of TDLs in VfV^{f \natural}, including examples of irrational quantum dimension. In particular, we fully classify and construct defects for the TY(Z2)(\mathbb{Z}_2) and TY(Z3)(\mathbb{Z}_3) cases, and provide examples of duality defects for TY(Z2×Z2)(\mathbb{Z}_2\times \mathbb{Z}_2) and Fibonacci fusion categories as well. In the case of K3 NLSMs, we describe a duality defect of irrational quantum dimension 2\sqrt{2} for the category TY(Z2,1)(\mathbb{Z}_2, -1) in a particular torus orbifold, which exists on a 16-dimensional slice of the moduli space. We also provide a detailed analysis of spectral flow--preserving TDLs in Gepner models of K3, of independent interest, and use this to construct non-invertible defects for Fibonacci and Rep(S3)Rep(S_3) categories in particular examples. Finally we provide evidence for our conjecture in [hep-th:2504.18619] that special subcategories of such TDLs in VfV^{f \natural} correspond to N=(4,4)N=(4,4) and spectral flow--preserving defect lines in a corresponding K3 NLSM. In particular, we compute defect--twined elliptic genera for all non-invertible defects constructed in this article, demonstrating that for each defect found in a K3 NLSM, there is a corresponding defect in VfV^{f \natural} with coincident twining genus, and making a prediction for a number of TDLs in K3 NLSMs yet to be found.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.19640,
  title  = {Non-invertible defects from the Conway SCFT to K3 sigma models II: duality and Fibonacci defects},
  author = {Roberta Angius and Stefano Giaccari and Sarah M. Harrison and Roberto Volpato},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.19640},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

101 pages + appendices