Related papers: When Symmetries Twist: Anomaly Inflow on Monodromy…
In theories with chiral couplings, one of the important consistency requirements is that of the cancellation of a gauge anomaly. In particular, this is one of the conditions imposed on the hypercharges in the Standard Model. However,…
Topological defects are singularities in material fields that play a vital role across a range of systems: from cosmic microwave background polarization to superconductors, and biological materials. Although topological defects and their…
The effect of a co--dimension--2 spherical monodromy defect on the free--field theory of a conformal scalar is investigated. The conformal anomaly is computed (in two ways) and thence the R\'enyi and entanglement entropies. The $C_T$…
We use the numerical bootstrap to study conformal line defects with $O(2)$ global symmetry. Our results are very general and capture in particular conformal line defects originating from bulk CFTs with a continuous global symmetry, which…
Re-configurable materials and meta-materials can jump between space symmetry classes during their deformations. Here, we introduce the concept of singular symmetry enhancement, which refers to an abrupt jump to a higher symmetry class…
What does it mean for a boundary condition to be symmetric with respect to a non-invertible global symmetry? We discuss two possible definitions in 1+1d. On the one hand, we call a boundary weakly symmetric if the symmetry defects can…
We apply modular flow -- entanglement generated dynamics -- to characterize quantum orders of ground state wavefunctions. In particular, we study the linear response of the entanglement entropy of a simply connected region with respect to…
In this paper, using 1+1D models as examples, we study symmetries and anomalous symmetries via multi-component partition functions obtained through symmetry twists, and their transformations under the mapping class group of spacetime. This…
I analyze the interplay of gauge and global symmetries in the theory of topological defects. In a two-dimensional model in which both gauge symmetries and {\it exact} global symmetries are spontaneously broken, stable vortices may fail to…
We study the mixed 't Hooft anomaly of the subsystem symmetries in the exotic $BF$ theory and the foliated $BF$ theory in 2+1 dimensions, both of which are fractonic quantum field theories describing the equivalent physics. In the anomaly…
In this paper we rigorously investigate the emergence of defects on Nematic Shells with genus different from one. This phenomenon is related to a non trivial interplay between the topology of the shell and the alignment of the director…
The study of topology in solids is undergoing a renaissance following renewed interest in the properties of ferroic domain walls as well as recent discoveries regarding topological insulators and skyrmionic lattices. Each of these systems…
Recently, it was realized that anomalies can be completely classified by topological orders, symmetry protected topological (SPT) orders, and symmetry enriched topological orders in one higher dimension. The anomalies that people used to…
In this work we study the problem of positiveness of topological entropy for flows using pointwise dynamics. We show that the existence of a non-periodic nonwandering point of an expansive and non-singular flow with shadowing is a…
The influence of topological defects on phase synchronization and phase coherence in two-dimensional arrays of locally-coupled, nonidentical, chaotic oscillators is investigated. The motion of topological defects leads to a breakdown of…
Symmetry-breaking phase transitions are ubiquitous in condensed matter systems and in quantum field theories. There is also good reason to believe that they feature in the very early history of the Universe. At many such transitions…
Free Maxwell theory on general four-manifolds may, under certain conditions on the background geometry, exhibit holomorphic factorization in its partition function. We show that when this occurs, new discrete symmetries emerge at orbifold…
Quantum systems in 3+1-dimensions that are invariant under gauging a one-form symmetry enjoy novel non-invertible duality symmetries encoded by topological defects. These symmetries are renormalization group invariants which constrain…
Recent experiments on monolayers of spindle-like cells plated on adhesive stripe-shaped domains have provided a convincing demonstration that certain types of collective phenomena in epithelia are well described by active nematic…
A global symmetry of a quantum field theory is said to have an 't Hooft anomaly if it cannot be promoted to a local symmetry of a gauged theory. In this paper, we show that the anomaly is also an obstruction to defining symmetric boundary…