Monopole Breaking of Chern-Weil Symmetries

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: García-Valdecasas, Eduardo, Reece, Matthew, Suzuki, Motoo
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author García-Valdecasas, Eduardo
Reece, Matthew
Suzuki, Motoo
author_facet García-Valdecasas, Eduardo
Reece, Matthew
Suzuki, Motoo
contents Gauge theories in $d$ dimensions with a nontrivial fundamental group admit a $(d-3)$-form magnetic symmetry and a $(d-5)$-form instantonic symmetry. These are examples of Chern-Weil symmetries, with conserved currents built out of the gauge field strength, which can only be explicitly broken through violations of the Bianchi identity. For U(1) gauge theory, it is clear that magnetic monopoles violate not only the $(d-3)$-form magnetic symmetry but also lower-form symmetries like the instantonic symmetry. It is also known that an improved instanton number symmetry current, which is conserved, can be constructed in the case that the magnetic monopole admits a dyonic excitation. We study the generalization to other gauge groups, showing that magnetic monopoles also violate instantonic symmetries for nonabelian groups like PSU($n$), and that dyon modes can restore such symmetries. Furthermore, we show that in many (but not all) examples where a gauge group $G$ is Higgsed to a gauge group $H$, the structure of monopoles and dyons emerging from the Higgsing process explicitly breaks the instantonic symmetries of $H$ to those of $G$. The meaning of explicit breaking of a $(d-5)$-form symmetry is clearest for $d > 4$, but these results also extend to $d = 4$, where the breaking is interpreted as an obstruction to coupling the theory to a background axion field.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_00067
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Monopole Breaking of Chern-Weil Symmetries
García-Valdecasas, Eduardo
Reece, Matthew
Suzuki, Motoo
High Energy Physics - Theory
Gauge theories in $d$ dimensions with a nontrivial fundamental group admit a $(d-3)$-form magnetic symmetry and a $(d-5)$-form instantonic symmetry. These are examples of Chern-Weil symmetries, with conserved currents built out of the gauge field strength, which can only be explicitly broken through violations of the Bianchi identity. For U(1) gauge theory, it is clear that magnetic monopoles violate not only the $(d-3)$-form magnetic symmetry but also lower-form symmetries like the instantonic symmetry. It is also known that an improved instanton number symmetry current, which is conserved, can be constructed in the case that the magnetic monopole admits a dyonic excitation. We study the generalization to other gauge groups, showing that magnetic monopoles also violate instantonic symmetries for nonabelian groups like PSU($n$), and that dyon modes can restore such symmetries. Furthermore, we show that in many (but not all) examples where a gauge group $G$ is Higgsed to a gauge group $H$, the structure of monopoles and dyons emerging from the Higgsing process explicitly breaks the instantonic symmetries of $H$ to those of $G$. The meaning of explicit breaking of a $(d-5)$-form symmetry is clearest for $d > 4$, but these results also extend to $d = 4$, where the breaking is interpreted as an obstruction to coupling the theory to a background axion field.
title Monopole Breaking of Chern-Weil Symmetries
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.00067