Chern-Weil global symmetries and completeness of the spectrum

Abstract: Perhaps the oldest Swampland conjecture in the book is the absence of global symmetries. I will describe the consequences of applying this conjecture to a particular class of symmetries, Chern-Weil symmetries, that are ubiquitous in string compactifications and which arise from powers of fieldstrenghts. I will explore the processes by which Chern-Weil symmetries may be broken or gauged in effective field theory and string theory. This will allow us to derive the existence of familiar features of string theory, such as worldvolume degrees of freedom in branes. Another lore holds that absence global symmetries in a quantum field theory is equivalent to having a complete spectrum of charged states in the theory. I will discuss and make precise this connection, and explain and how a particular version of it can be proven in pure gauge theory with arbitrary (even disconnected) gauge group.

general relativity and quantum cosmologyHEP - phenomenologyHEP - theorymathematical physics

Audience: researchers in the topic

CCTP HEP Seminars

Series comments: Description: Seminars in high energy physics

Weekly HEP Seminars in the broad spectrum of High Energy Physics at University of Crete.

Recordings of past seminars can be found at conference.physics.uoc.gr/b/hep-kzk-2ad