Anomalies of Discrete Gauge Symmetries and their Cancellation in 6D F-theory

10/24/2022 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
CMSA Room G10
Address: CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Swampland Seminar

Speaker: Paul-Konstantin Oehlmann(Northeastern)

Title: Anomalies of Discrete Gauge Symmetries and their Cancellation in 6D F-theory

Abstract: We consider 6D SUGRAs with a discrete gauge group G, engineered via F-theory compactifications on genus-one fibered threefolds. We argue that group G suffers from Dai-Freed anomalies that can be canceled via a discrete Green-Schwarz mechanism. We comment on the ambiguity to assign this GS term in the 7D Anomaly theory which leads to choices that are not all compatible with F-theory.

In F-theory we then deduce this Anomaly coefficient explicitly by computing the elliptic genera of the non-critical strings that couple to the 6D two-form fields: Their 2D worldsheet theories inherits a G Flavor symmetries whose t’Hooft anomaly cancels the 6D Dai-Freed anomaly in the bulk via inflow. This talk is based on work in preparation together with Markus Dierigl and Thorsten Schimmanek.