Related papers: Higher-Group Symmetries and Weak Gravity Conjectur…
We study three-dimensional gauge theories based on orthogonal groups. Depending on the global form of the group these theories admit discrete $\theta$-parameters, which control the weights in the sum over topologically distinct gauge…
In this paper we study the consistency of generalized global symmetries in theories of quantum gravity, in particular string theory. Such global symmetries arise in theories with $(p+1)$-form gauge fields, and for spacetime dimension $d\leq…
We present a consistent way of coupling three-dimensional Maxwell Chern-Simons gravity theory with massless spin-$\frac{5}{2}$ gauge fields. We first introduce the simplest hyper-Maxwell Chern-Simons gravity containing two massless spin-2…
We couple Chern-Simons gauge theory to 3-dimensional topological gravity with the aim of investigating its quantum topological invariance. We derive the relevant BRST rules and Batalin-Vilkovisky action. Standard BRST transformations of the…
A five-dimensional Chern-Simons gravity theory based on the anti-de Sitter group SO(4,2) is argued to be a useful model in which to understand the details of holography and the relationship between generally covariant and dual local quantum…
Strong/weak coupling duality in Chern-Simons supergravity is studied. It is argued that this duality can be regarded as an example of superduality. The use of supergroup techniques for the description of Chern-Simons supergravity greatly…
We study the three-dimensional theory of two Chern-Simons gauge fields coupled to a scalar field in the bifundamental representation of the $SU(N)_k \times SU(M)_{-k}$ gauge group. At small but fixed $M \ll N$, this system approaches the…
The leitmotif of this paper is the question of whether four- and higher even-dimensional Conformal Gravities do have a Chern-Simons pedigree. We show that Weyl gravity can be obtained as dimensional reduction of a five-dimensional…
In this note, we revisit the 4-dimensional theory of massive gravity through compactification of an extra dimension and geometric symmetry breaking. We dimensionally reduce the 5-dimensional topological Chern-Simons gauge theory of (anti)…
By coupling {\cal N}=8 superconformal matter to {\cal N}=8 superconformal Chern-Simons gravity in three dimensions we obtain theories with novel terms in the scalar potential leading to AdS_3 solutions and superconformal symmetry breaking.…
Strong (sublattice or tower) formulations of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) imply that, if a weakly coupled gauge theory exists, a tower of charged particles drives the theory to strong coupling at an ultraviolet scale well below the…
We invoke probe brane arguments to classify the asymptotic behavior of general five-dimensional supergravity theories with eight supercharges near infinite distance boundaries of the vector multiplet moduli space. Imposing consistency of…
We investigate the asymptotic Tower Weak Gravity Conjecture in weak coupling limits of open string theories with minimal supersymmetry in four dimensions, focusing for definiteness on gauge theories realized on 7-branes in F-theory.…
A strong coupling limit of theories whose low-energy effective field theory is 5-dimensional N=8 supergravity is proposed in which the gravitational coupling becomes large. It is argued that, if this limit exists, it should be a…
We describe special supersymmetric gauge theories in three, five, seven and nine dimensions, whose compactification on two-, four-, six- and eight-folds produces a supersymmetric quantum mechanics on moduli spaces of holomorphic bundles…
This is intended as a broad introduction to Chern-Simons gravity and supergravity. The motivation for these theories lies in the desire to have a gauge invariant system --with a fiber bundle formulation-- in more than three dimensions,…
We investigate $2n$-dimensional axion electrodynamics for the purpose of exploring a higher-group structure underlying it. This is manifested as a Green-Schwarz transformation of the background gauge fields that couple minimally to the…
Among the allowed representations of extended supersymmetry in six dimensions there are exotic chiral multiplets that, instead of a graviton, contain mixed-symmetry spin-2 tensor fields. Notably, an $\mathcal{N}=(4,0)$ multiplet has a four…
We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the consistency of the supertrace, through the existence of a certain ground state projector. We build this projector and check its properties to the first two orders in the number…
Large N quasi-fermionic Chern-Simons-matter theories have an approximate higher-spin symmetry that strongly constrains their correlation functions. In particular, the 3-point functions for generic spins are combinations of 3 structures…