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Autores principales: Montero, Miguel, Zapata, Luis
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.06985
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author Montero, Miguel
Zapata, Luis
author_facet Montero, Miguel
Zapata, Luis
contents The chiral worldvolume theory of an M-theory boundary (the so-called M9 brane) is uniquely determined by supersymmetry and anomaly inflow. In this brief note we investigate whether alternative chiral boundary field contents may be allowed by anomaly cancellation once supersymmetry is dropped. Even then, anomaly inflow places stringent constraints on the gauge group $G$ and matter content of the boundary worldvolume theory, which we determine explicitly. We find the most general solution to these constraints in the case where all matter fields are of the same chirality, for all simple Lie algebras except $\mathfrak{sp}_2$, $\mathfrak{su}_{n\leq5}$, and $\mathfrak{so}_{n}$ with $7\leq n\leq 12$, and find no solutions other than the supersymmetric $E_8$ boundary of Hořava and Witten. However, when we extend our search to allow for any chirality in the matter fields, we find one minimal solution with gauge group $G_2$, charged matter in the $\mathsf{14}$, $\mathsf{27}$ and $\mathsf{77}$ representations, which satisfies all constraints in a non-trivial way. Therefore, it could in principle describe the low-energy theory of a novel nonsupersymmetric M-theory boundary condition, different from the Hořava-Witten proposal. We briefly discuss some consequences if this was indeed the case, such as the existence of a non-supersymmetric, exotic "$G_2$-string" CFT in 6d, and a novel, non-perturbative, heterotic-like 10d string with gauge group $G_2\times G_2$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_06985
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle M-theory boundaries beyond supersymmetry
Montero, Miguel
Zapata, Luis
High Energy Physics - Theory
The chiral worldvolume theory of an M-theory boundary (the so-called M9 brane) is uniquely determined by supersymmetry and anomaly inflow. In this brief note we investigate whether alternative chiral boundary field contents may be allowed by anomaly cancellation once supersymmetry is dropped. Even then, anomaly inflow places stringent constraints on the gauge group $G$ and matter content of the boundary worldvolume theory, which we determine explicitly. We find the most general solution to these constraints in the case where all matter fields are of the same chirality, for all simple Lie algebras except $\mathfrak{sp}_2$, $\mathfrak{su}_{n\leq5}$, and $\mathfrak{so}_{n}$ with $7\leq n\leq 12$, and find no solutions other than the supersymmetric $E_8$ boundary of Hořava and Witten. However, when we extend our search to allow for any chirality in the matter fields, we find one minimal solution with gauge group $G_2$, charged matter in the $\mathsf{14}$, $\mathsf{27}$ and $\mathsf{77}$ representations, which satisfies all constraints in a non-trivial way. Therefore, it could in principle describe the low-energy theory of a novel nonsupersymmetric M-theory boundary condition, different from the Hořava-Witten proposal. We briefly discuss some consequences if this was indeed the case, such as the existence of a non-supersymmetric, exotic "$G_2$-string" CFT in 6d, and a novel, non-perturbative, heterotic-like 10d string with gauge group $G_2\times G_2$.
title M-theory boundaries beyond supersymmetry
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.06985