Related papers: Anomaly-induced vanishing of brane partition funct…
The two-point function of exactly marginal operators leads to a universal contribution to the trace anomaly in even dimensions. We study aspects of this trace anomaly, emphasizing its interpretation as a sigma model, whose target space M is…
We study D3-branes in an NS5-branes background defined by an arbitrary 4d harmonic function. Using a gauge-invariant formulation of Born-Infeld dynamics as well as the supersymmetry condition, we find the general solution for the…
Chiral symmetries in field theory are typically affected by an anomaly in the quantum theory. This anomaly emerges when one introduces an interaction with a Yang-Mills or gravitational background. Physical applications of this quantum…
We explore the rich landscape of higher-form and non-invertible symmetries that emerge at low energies in generic ordered phases. Using that their charge is carried by homotopy defects (i.e., domain walls, vortices, hedgehogs, etc.), in the…
In \cite{Garcia-Etxebarria:2017crf}, it was found that the system of $k$ D7-branes probing an $O7^+$-plane suffers from an $\mathfrak{sp}(k)$ gauge anomaly when $k>1$. These authors then conjectured that this 8D $\mathcal{N}=1$ gauge theory…
We review the E(8) model of the M-theory 3-form and its applications to anomaly cancellation, Gauss laws, quantization of Page charge, and the 5-brane partition function. We discuss the potentially problematic behavior of the model under…
We consider general fermionic quantum field theories with a global finite group symmetry $G$, focusing on the case of 2-dimensions and torus spacetime. The modular transformation properties of the family of partition functions with…
We highlight what seems to be a remaining subtlety in the argument for the cancellation of the total anomaly associated with the M5-brane in M-theory. Then we prove that this subtlety is resolved under the hypothesis that the C-field flux…
An 't Hooft anomaly is the obstruction for gauging symmetries, and it constrains possible low-energy behaviors of quantum field theories by excluding trivial infrared theories. Global inconsistency condition is recently proposed as a milder…
Monodromy defects describe a dynamical termination of topological symmetry operators, and are sourced by a localized background magnetic flux. We study their properties in gapped SPT phases and, by inflow, in gapless theories with an…
Much insight into the dynamics of quantum field theories can be gained by studying the relationship between field theories in different dimensions. An interesting observation is that when two theories are related by dimensional reduction on…
We discuss a large class of non-relativistic continuum field theories where the Euclidean spatial symmetry of the classical theory is violated in the quantum theory by an Adler-Bell-Jackiw-like anomaly. In particular, the continuous…
We re-interpret the anomaly cancellation conditions for the gauge symmetries and the baryonic flavor symmetries in quiver gauge theories realized by the brane tilings from the viewpoint of flux conservation on branes.
In accordance with recent progress of fracton topological phases, unusual topological phases of matter hosting fractionalized quasiparticle excitations with mobility constraints, new type of symmetry is studied -- multipole symmetry,…
We study quantum chromodynamics including the two-index symmetric or anti-symmetric quark (QCD(Sym/ASym)) on small $\mathbb{R}^2\times T^2$ with a suitable magnetic flux. We first discuss the 't Hooft anomaly of these theories and claim…
We show that the 't Hooft anomaly of a quantum field theory with continuous flavor symmetry can be detected from rearrangements of the topological defect webs implementing the global symmetry in general spacetime dimension, which is…
The 't Hooft anomaly matching conditions are a standard tool to study and test non-perturbative issues in quantum field theory. We give a new, simple proof of the anomaly matching conditions in 2D Poincare` invariant theories. We consider…
The computation of the partition function in certain quantum field theories, such as those of the Argyres-Douglas or Minahan-Nemeschansky type, is problematic due to the lack of a Lagrangian description. In this paper, we use the…
In a large class of chiral gauge theories in four dimensions it was found that certain natural assumption about the bifermion condensates leads to the infrared effective theory where the 't Hooft anomaly matching conditions are satisfied in…
We show the complete cancellation of gauge and gravitational anomalies in the M-theory of Horava and Witten using their boundary contribution, and a term coming from the existence of two and five-branes. A factor of three discrepancy noted…