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arXiv · 1906.07417

Twisted Cohomotopy implies level quantization of the full 6d Wess-Zumino term of the M5-brane

Domenico Fiorenza·Hisham Sati·Urs Schreiber
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Abstract

The full 6d Hopf-Wess-Zumino term in the action functional for the M5-brane is anomalous as traditionally defined. What has been missing is a condition implying the higher analogue of level quantization familiar from the 2d Wess-Zumino term. We prove that the anomaly cancellation condition is implied by the hypothesis that the C-field is charge-quantized in twisted Cohomotopy theory. The proof follows by a twisted/parametrized generalization of the Hopf invariant, after identifying the full 6d Hopf-Wess-Zumino term with a twisted homotopy Whitehead integral formula, which we establish.

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Domenico Fiorenza, Hisham Sati, Urs Schreiber. 2019-06-18. Twisted Cohomotopy implies level quantization of the full 6d Wess-Zumino term of the M5-brane. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00220-021-03951-0

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