arXiv subjects

Kazuya Yonekura

Publications and source records attributed to Kazuya Yonekura.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Atiyah-Patodi-Singer index theorem from axial anomaly

We give a very simple derivation of the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer (APS) index theorem and its small generalization by using the path integral of massless Dirac fermions. It is based on the Fujikawa's argument for the relation between the axial anomaly and the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, and only a minor modification of that argument is sufficient to show the APS index theorem. The key ingredient is the identification of the APS boundary condition and its generalization as physical state vectors in the Hilbert space of the massless fermion theory. The APS $η$-invariant appears as the axial charge of the physical states.

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arXiv2021

General anomaly matching by Goldstone bosons

We describe how Goldstone bosons of spontaneous symmetry breaking $G \to H$ can reproduce anomalies of UV theories under the symmetry group $G$ at the nonperturbative level. This is done by giving a general definition of Wess-Zumino-Witten terms in terms of the invertible field theories in $d+1$ dimensions which describe the anomalies of $d$-dimensional UV theories. The hidden local symmetry $\widehat H$, which is used to describe Goldstone bosons in coset construction $G/H$, plays an important role. Our definition also naturally leads to generalized $θ$-angles of the hidden local gauge group $\widehat H$. We illustrate this point by ${\rm SO}(N_c)$ (or ${\rm Spin}(N_c)$) QCD-like theories in four dimensions.

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arXiv2020

Witten effect, anomaly inflow, and charge teleportation

We study a phenomenon that electric charges are "teleported" between two spatially separated objects without exchanging charged particles at all. For example, this phenomenon happens between a magnetic monopole and an axion string in four dimensions, two vortices in three dimensions, and two M5-branes in M-theory in which M2-charges are teleported. This is realized by anomaly inflow into these objects in the presence of cubic Chern-Simons terms. In particular, the Witten effect on magnetic monopoles can be understood as a general consequence of anomaly inflow, which implies that some anomalous quantum mechanics must live on them. Charge violation occurs in the anomalous theories living on these objects, but it happens in such a way that the total charge is conserved between the two spatially separated objects. We derive a formula for the amount of the charge which is teleported between the two objects in terms of the linking number of their world volumes in spacetime.

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arXiv2020

Anomaly Inflow and the $η$-Invariant

Perturbative fermion anomalies in spacetime dimension $d$ have a well-known relation to Chern-Simons functions in dimension $D=d+1$. This relationship is manifested in a beautiful way in "anomaly inflow" from the bulk of a system to its boundary. Along with perturbative anomalies, fermions also have global or nonperturbative anomalies, which can be incorporated by using the $η$-invariant of Atiyah, Patodi, and Singer instead of the Chern-Simons function. Here we give a nonperturbative description of anomaly inflow, involving the $η$-invariant. This formula has been expected in the past based on the Dai-Freed theorem, but has not been fully justified. It leads to a general description of perturbative and nonperturbative fermion anomalies in $d$ dimensions in terms of an $η$-invariant in $D$ dimensions. This $η$-invariant is a cobordism invariant whenever perturbative anomalies cancel.

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arXiv2020

Confinement as Analytic Continuation Beyond Infinity

We propose a mechanism for confinement: analytic continuation beyond infinite coupling in the space of the coupling constant. The analytic continuation is realized by renormalization group flows from the weak to the strong coupling regime. We demonstrate this mechanism explicitly for the mass gap in two-dimensional sigma models in the large $N$ limit. Our analysis suggests that the conventional analysis of the operator product expansion in itself does not necessarily guarantee the existence of a classical solution corresponding to renormalons. We discuss how the renormalon puzzle may be resolved by the analytic continuation beyond infinite coupling.

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arXiv2019

Anomaly of the Electromagnetic Duality of Maxwell Theory

We consider the ($3{+}1$)-dimensional Maxwell theory in the situation where going around nontrivial paths in the spacetime involves the action of the duality transformation exchanging the electric field and the magnetic field, as well as its $\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{Z})$ generalizations. We find that the anomaly of this system in a particular formulation is 56 times that of a Weyl fermion. This result is derived in two independent ways: one is by using the bulk symmetry protected topological phase in $4{+}1$ dimensions characterizing the anomaly, and the other is by considering the properties of a ($5{+}1$)-dimensional superconformal field theory known as the E-string theory. This anomaly of the Maxwell theory plays an important role in the consistency of string theory.

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arXiv2019

Why are fractional charges of orientifolds compatible with Dirac quantization?

Orientifold $p$-planes with $p\le4$ have fractional D$p$-charges, and therefore appear inconsistent with Dirac quantization with respect to D$(6-p)$-branes. We explain in detail how this issue is resolved by taking into account the anomaly of the worldvolume fermions using the $η$ invariants. We also point out relationships to the classification of interacting fermionic symmetry protected topological phases. In an appendix, we point out that the duality group of type IIB string theory is the pin+ version of the double cover of $GL(2,\mathbb{Z})$.

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arXiv2019

Black hole information and Reeh-Schlieder theorem

The Reeh-Schlieder theorem, with the time-slice axiom of quantum field theory, may be used to recover the information which falls into a black hole. Analyticity of quantum fields in states with finite energy plays the crucial role. In AdS spacetime, our argument based on the Reeh-Schlieder theorem is consistent with the argument that there is no information loss because of the AdS/CFT correspondence.

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arXiv2019

Anomaly matching in QCD thermal phase transition

We study an 't Hooft anomaly of massless QCD at finite temperature. With the imaginary baryon chemical potential at the Roberge-Weiss point, there is a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry which can be used to define confinement. We show the existence of a mixed anomaly between the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry and the chiral symmetry, which gives a strong relation between confinement and chiral symmetry breaking. The anomaly is a parity anomaly in the QCD Lagrangian reduced to three dimensions. It is reproduced in the chiral Lagrangian by a topological term related to Skyrmion charge, matching the anomaly before and after QCD phase transition. The effect of the imaginary chemical potential is suppresssed in the large $N$ expansion, and we discuss implications of the 't~Hooft anomaly matching for the nature of QCD phase transition with and without the imaginary chemical potential. Arguments based on universality alone are disfavored, and a first order phase transition may be the simplest possibility if the large $N$ expansion is qualitatively good.

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arXiv2019

On the cobordism classification of symmetry protected topological phases

In the framework of Atiyah's axioms of topological quantum field theory with unitarity, we give a direct proof of the fact that symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases without Hall effects are classified by cobordism invariants. We first show that the partition functions of those theories are cobordism invariants after a tuning of the Euler term. Conversely, for a given cobordism invariant, we construct a unitary topological field theory whose partition function is given by the cobordism invariant. Two theories having the same cobordism invariant partition functions are isomorphic.

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arXiv2018

Anomaly constraints on deconfinement and chiral phase transition

We study constraints on thermal phase transitions of ${\rm SU}(N_c)$ gauge theories by using the 't Hooft anomaly involving the center symmetry and chiral symmetry. We consider two cases of massless fermions: (i) adjoint fermions, and (ii) $N_f$ flavors of fundamental fermions with a nontrivial greatest common divisor ${\rm gcd}(N_c,N_f) \neq 1$. For the first case (i), we show that the chiral symmetry restoration in terms of the standard Landau-Ginzburg effective action is impossible at a temperature lower than that of deconfinement. For the second case (ii), we introduce a modified version of the center symmetry which we call center-flavor symmetry, and draw similar conclusions under a certain definition of confinement. Moreover, at zero temperature, our results give a partial explanation of the appearance of dual magnetic gauge group in (supersymmetric) QCD when ${\rm gcd}(N_c,N_f) \neq 1$.

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arXiv2018

Anomalies of Duality Groups and Extended Conformal Manifolds

A self-duality group $\cal G$ in quantum field theory can have anomalies. In that case, the space of ordinary coupling constants $\cal M$ can be extended to include the space $\cal F$ of coefficients of counterterms in background fields. The extended space $\cal N$ forms a bundle over $\cal M$ with fiber $\cal F$, and the topology of the bundle is determined by the anomaly. For example, the ${\cal G}=SL(2,\mathbb{Z})$ duality of the 4d Maxwell theory has an anomaly, and the space ${\cal F}=S^1$ for the gravitational theta-angle is nontrivially fibered over ${\cal M}=\mathbb{H}/SL(2,\mathbb{Z})$. We will explain a simple method to determine the anomaly when the 4d theory is obtained by compactifying a 6d theory on a Riemann surface in terms of the anomaly polynomial of the parent 6d theory. Our observations resolve an apparent contradiction associated with the global structure of the Kahler potential on the space of exactly marginal couplings of supersymmetric theories.

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arXiv2018

Symmetry enhancement and closing of knots in 3d/3d correspondence

We revisit Dimofte-Gaiotto-Gukov's construction of 3d gauge theories associated to 3-manifolds with a torus boundary. After clarifying their construction from a viewpoint of compactification of a 6d $\mathcal{N}=(2,0)$ theory of $A_1$-type on a 3-manifold, we propose a topological criterion for $SU(2)/SO(3)$ flavor symmetry enhancement for the $u(1)$ symmetry in the theory associated to a torus boundary, which is expected from the 6d viewpoint. Base on the understanding of symmetry enhancement, we generalize the construction to closed 3-manifolds by identifying the gauge theory counterpart of Dehn filling operation. The generalized construction predicts infinitely many 3d dualities from surgery calculus in knot theory. Moreover, by using the symmetry enhancement criterion, we show that theories associated to all hyperboilc twist knots have surprising $SU(3)$ symmetry enhancement which is unexpected from the 6d viewpoint.

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arXiv2018

Anomalies involving the space of couplings and the Zamolodchikov metric

The anomaly polynomial of a theory can involve not only curvature two-forms of the flavor symmetry background but also two-forms on the space of coupling constants. As an example, we point out that there is a mixed anomaly between the R-symmetry and the topology of the space of exactly marginal couplings of class S theories. Using supersymmetry, we translate this anomaly to the Kähler class of the Zamolodchikov metric. We compare the result against a holographic computation in the large N limit. In an appendix, we explain how to obtain the bosonic components in the supergravity completion of the curvature squared terms using compatibility with the topological twist.

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arXiv2017

8d gauge anomalies and the topological Green-Schwarz mechanism

String theory provides us with 8d supersymmetric gauge theory with gauge algebras $\mathfrak{su}(N)$, $\mathfrak{so}(2N)$, $\mathfrak{sp}(N)$, $\mathfrak{e}_{6}$, $\mathfrak{e}_{7}$ and $\mathfrak{e}_{8}$, but no construction for $\mathfrak{so}(2N{+}1)$, $\mathfrak{f}_4$ and $\mathfrak{g}_2$ is known. In this paper, we show that the theories for $\mathfrak{f}_4$ and $\mathfrak{so}(2N{+}1)$ have a global gauge anomaly associated to $π_{d=8}$, while $\mathfrak{g}_2$ does not have it. We argue that the anomaly associated to $π_d$ in $d$-dimensional gauge theories cannot be canceled by topological degrees of freedom in general. We also show that the theories for $\mathfrak{sp}(N)$ have a subtler gauge anomaly, which we suggest should be canceled by a topological analogue of the Green-Schwarz mechanism.

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arXiv2017

More on time-reversal anomaly of 2+1d topological phases

We prove an explicit formula conjectured recently by Wang and Levin for the anomaly of time-reversal symmetry in 2+1 dimensional fermionic topological quantum field theories. The crucial step is to determine the crosscap state in terms of the modular S matrix and $\mathsf{T}^2$ eigenvalues, generalizing the recent analysis by Barkeshli et al. in the bosonic case.

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arXiv2017

From 4d Yang-Mills to 2d $\mathbb{CP}^{N-1}$ model: IR problem and confinement at weak coupling

We study four-dimensional $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ Yang-Mills theory on $\mathbb{R} \times \mathbb{T}^3=\mathbb{R} \times S^1_A \times S^1_B \times S^1_C$, with a twisted boundary condition by a $\mathbb{Z}_N$ center symmetry imposed on $S^1_B \times S^1_C$. This setup has no IR zero modes and hence is free from IR divergences which could spoil trans-series expansion for physical observables. Moreover, we show that the center symmetry is preserved at weak coupling regime. This is shown by first reducing the theory on $\mathbb{T}^2=S_A \times S_B$, to connect the model to the two-dimensional $\mathbb{CP}^{N-1}$-model. Then, we prove that the twisted boundary condition by the center symmetry for the Yang-Mills is reduced to the twisted boundary condition by the $\mathbb{Z}_N$ global symmetry of $\mathbb{CP}^{N-1}$. There are $N$ classical vacua, and fractional instantons connecting those $N$ vacua dynamically restore the center symmetry. We also point out the presence of singularities on the Borel plane which depend on the shape of the compactification manifold, and comment on its implications.

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arXiv2017

Smallest 3d hyperbolic manifolds via simple 3d theories

We provide strong pieces of evidence that the mathematics of the three-dimensional hyperbolic manifolds of the first, second and third smallest volume is captured by the physics of the three-dimensional theories composed of a complex boson and a Dirac fermion, both of unit charge, coupled to a U(1) gauge field with the Chern-Simons level $-5/2$, $-7/2$ and $-3/2$, respectively.

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