相关论文: Generalized Symmetries, Gravity, and the Swampland
It is widely believed that global symmetries must be broken in Quantum Gravity. This includes higher-form symmetries, which are commonplace in supergravity coupled to vector multiplets. Recently, a quantitative criterion for the breaking of…
The required absence of global symmetries in quantum gravity has been used to imply that all non-compact gauge theories are in the swampland. This argument stems from the idea that non-compact gauge symmetries always seem to be accompanied…
As famously observed by Ooguri and Vafa nearly twenty years ago, scalar field moduli spaces in quantum gravity appear to exhibit various universal features. For instance, they seem to be infinite in diameter, have trivial fundamental group,…
We study generalized symmetries in a simplified arena in which the usual quantum field theories of physics are replaced with topological field theories and the smooth structure with which the symmetry groups of physics are usually endowed…
It is widely believed and in part established that exact global symmetries are inconsistent with quantum gravity. One then expects that approximate global symmetries can be quantitatively constrained by quantum gravity or swampland…
We explore the notion of approximate global symmetries in quantum field theory and quantum gravity. We show that a variety of conjectures about quantum gravity, including the weak gravity conjecture, the distance conjecture, and the…
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 study gauge symmetry in F-theory in light of global aspects. For this, we consider not only a simple (local) group, but also a semi-simple group with Abelian factors. Once we specify the complete gauge group by decomposing the…
Linearised gravity has a global symmetry under which the graviton is shifted by a symmetric tensor satisfying a certain flatness condition. There is also a dual symmetry that can be associated with a global shift symmetry of the dual…
Dynamical quantum field theories (QFTs), such as those in which spacetimes are equipped with a metric and/or a field in the form of a smooth map to a target manifold, can be formulated axiomatically using the language of…
The concepts of symmetry, symmetry breaking and gauge symmetries are discussed, their operational meaning being displayed by the observables {\em and} the (physical) states. For infinitely extended systems the states fall into physically…
We discuss aspects of global and gauged symmetries in quantum field theory and quantum gravity, focusing on discrete gauge symmetries. An effective Lagrangian description of $\Z_p$ gauge theories shows that they are associated with an…
We extend the formulation of gauged supergravity in five dimensions, as obtained by compactification of $M$~theory on a deformed Calabi-Yau manifold, to include non-universal matter hypermultiplets. Even in the presence of this gauging,…
We provide a conceptual assessment of some aspects of fundamental quantum field theories of gravity in light of foundational aspects of the swampland program. On the one hand, asymptotically safe quantum gravity may provide a simple and…
Parity and CP symmetries are broken in the world around us. Nonetheless, parity (or CP) may be a gauge symmetry which is higgsed in our universe. This is assumed in many scenarios for physics beyond the Standard Model, including the classic…
Recently, the first instance of a model of D-branes at Calabi-Yau singularities where supersymmetry is broken dynamically into stable vacua has been proposed. This construction was based on a system of $N$ regular and $M=1$ fractional…
It has been proposed that cobordism and K-theory groups, which can be mathematically related in certain cases, are physically associated to generalised higher-form symmetries. As a consequence, they should be broken or gauged in any…
We perform a systematic study of the applicability of swampland constraints to theories of localized gravity. We find that these gravity theories can violate swampland constraints, but can be reconciled with them when coupled to a…
It might be expected that only global symmetries are fundamental symmetries of Nature, whereas local symmetries and associated massless gauge fields could solely emerge due to spontaneous breaking of underlying spacetime symmetries…
I discuss gauge and global symmetries in particle physics, condensed matter physics, and quantum gravity. In a modern understanding, global symmetries are approximate and gauge symmetries may be emergent. (Based on a lecture at the April,…