Related papers: Higher-Group Symmetries and Weak Gravity Conjectur…
We point out that a QCD axion solving the strong CP problem can arise naturally from parity-odd gauge field C_M in 5-dimensional (5D) orbifold field theory. The required axion coupling to the QCD anomaly comes from the 5D Chern-Simons…
Motivated by some previously known facts from mathematical and physics literature, we explore certain relations between 3-dimensional topological gauge theories with continuous and finite gauge groups, commonly known as Chern-Simons (CS)…
F-theory compactifications with a nontrivial Mordell-Weil group realize abelian gauge symmetry through rational sections, but their consistency is ultimately a statement about the quantum effective action. We show that compactification on a…
Some admissible gauge groups of N=4 Chern-Simons gauged supergravity in three dimensions with exceptional scalar manifolds $G_{2(2)}/SO(4)$, $F_{4(4)}/USp(6)\times SU(2)$, $E_{6(2)}/SU(6)\times SU(2)$, $E_{7(-5)}/SO(12)\times SU(2)$ and…
The Axion Weak Gravity Conjecture provides one of the most effective quantum gravity tools for constraining particle physics and cosmology, but it has long been thought of as a slightly fuzzy statement: given an axion with decay constant…
The maximal gauged supergravities in five spacetime dimensions with gauge groups contained in $\mathbb{R}^+ \times \textrm{E}_{6(6)}$ are described. The $\textrm{E}_{6(6)}$ factor is the duality group of ungauged maximal supergravity and…
We propose a new class of conformal higher spin gravities in three dimensions, which extends the one by Pope and Townsend. The main new feature is that there are infinitely many examples of the new theories with a finite number of higher…
We study the coupling of axions to gauge bosons in heterotic string theory. The axion-gauge boson couplings in the low energy 4d theory are derived by matching mixed anomalies between higher-form global symmetries and the zero-form gauge…
This is the first paper of a series that will examine the options for embedding supersymmetric orbifold-GUTs into five-dimensional N=2 Yang-Mills-Einstein supergravity theories (YMESGTs). In particular, we focus on the allowed couplings of…
In this note we explored the holographic relative entropy in the presence of the 5d Chern-Simons term, which introduces a mixed gauge-gravity anomaly to the dual CFT. The theory trivially satisfies an entanglement first law. However, to…
We study $N=5$ gauged supergravity in three dimensions with compact, non-compact and non-semisimple gauge groups. The theory under consideration is of Chern-Simons type with $USp(4,k)/USp(4)\times USp(k)$ scalar manifold. We classify…
Higher-spin gravity in three dimensions is efficiently formulated as a Chern-Simons gauge-theory, typically with gauge algebra sl(N)+sl(N). The classical and quantum properties of the higher-spin theory depend crucially on the embedding…
We prove a version of the Weak Gravity Conjecture for 6d F-theory or heterotic string compactifications with 8 supercharges. This sharpens our previous analysis by including massless scalar fields. The latter are known to modify the Weak…
We derive the supersymmetric structure present in W-gravities which has been already observed in various contexts as Yang-Mills theory, topological field theories, bosonic string and chiral W_{3}-gravity. This derivation which is made in…
We argue a smallness of gauge couplings in abelian quiver gauge theories, taking the anomaly cancellation condition into account. In theories of our interest there exist chiral fermions leading to chiral gauge anomalies, and an anomaly-free…
Dynamical Chern-Simons gravity (dCS) is a four-dimensional parity-violating extension of general relativity. Current models predict the effect of this extension to be negligible due to large decay constants $f$ close to the scale of grand…
The gauge symmetry $SU(5) \times U(1)_\chi$ is the unique maximal subgroup of SO(10) which retains manifest unification at $M_{GUT}$ of the Standard Model gauge couplings, especially if low scale supersymmetry is present. The spontaneous…
Solar system observations have traditionally allowed for very stringent tests of Einstein's theory of general relativity. We here revisit the possibility of using these observations to constrain gravitational parity violation as…
We study 2+1 dimensional gauge theories with a Chern-Simons term and a fermion in the adjoint representation. We apply general considerations of symmetries, anomalies, and renormalization group flows to determine the possible phases of the…
We discuss the N=2 superspace formulation of the N=8 superconformal Bagger-Lambert-Gustavsson theory, and of the N=6 superconformal Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena U(N)xU(N) Chern-Simons theory. In particular, we prove the full SU(4)…