Higher form symmetries, membranes and flux quantization

F. Caro-Perez; M. P. Garcia del Moral; A. Restuccia

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arXiv · 2410.14051

Higher form symmetries, membranes and flux quantization

F. Caro-Perez·M. P. Garcia del Moral·A. Restuccia

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Abstract

Higher Forms Symmetries (HFS) of a closed bosonic M2-brane theory formulated on a compactified target space $\mathcal{M}_9 \times T^2$ are obtained. We show that the cancellation of the 't Hooft anomaly present in the theory is related to a 3-form flux with $\mathcal{G}_1^{\nabla}$-gerbe structure associated to the world-volume flux quantization condition. A Wilson surface is naturally introduced on the topological operator that characterize the holonomy of the M2-brane. The projection of the flux quantization condition inherited from the gerbe structure onto the spatial part of the worldvolume, leads to a flux quantization on the M2-brane. The topological operators realise discrete symmetries associated with the winding and the flux/monopole condition. The algebra of operators is well defined.

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F. Caro-Perez, M. P. Garcia del Moral, A. Restuccia. 2024-10-17. Higher form symmetries, membranes and flux quantization. https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.14051

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