Gauge Defect Networks in Two-Dimensional CFT

An interpretation of the gauge anomaly of the two-dimensional multi-phase sigma model is presented in terms of an obstruction to the existence of a topological defect network implementing a local trivialisation of the gauged sigma model.Comment: 8 pages; The article is the author's contribution to the Proceedings of the XXIX International Colloquium on Group-Theoretical Methods in Physics (20-26 August 2012, Tianjin, China

A Cartan tale of the orbifold superstring

A geometrisation scheme internal to the category of Lie supergroups is discussed for the supersymmetric de Rham cocycles on the super-Minkowski group $\,\mathbb{T}\,$ which determine the standard super-$p$-brane dynamics with that target, and interpreted within Cartan's approach to the modelling of orbispaces of group actions by homotopy quotients. The ensuing higher geometric objects are shown to carry a canonical equivariant structure for the action of a discrete subgroup of $\,\mathbb{T}$, which results in their descent to the corresponding orbifolds of $\,\mathbb{T}\,$ and in the emergence of a novel class of superfield theories with defects.Comment: 11 pages, to appear in the Proceedings of the XII International Symposium on Quantum Theory and Symmetries, July 24-28 2023, Pragu

Global Gauge Anomalies in Two-Dimensional Bosonic Sigma Models

We revisit the gauging of rigid symmetries in two-dimensional bosonic sigma models with a Wess-Zumino term in the action. Such a term is related to a background closed 3-form H on the target space. More exactly, the sigma-model Feynman amplitudes of classical fields are associated to a bundle gerbe with connection of curvature H over the target space. Under conditions that were unraveled more than twenty years ago, the classical amplitudes may be coupled to the topologically trivial gauge fields of the symmetry group in a way which assures infinitesimal gauge invariance. We show that the resulting gauged Wess-Zumino amplitudes may, nevertheless, exhibit global gauge anomalies that we fully classify. The general results are illustrated on the example of the WZW and the coset models of conformal field theory. The latter are shown to be inconsistent in the presence of global anomalies. We introduce a notion of equivariant gerbes that allow an anomaly-free coupling of the Wess-Zumino amplitudes to all gauge fields, including the ones in non-trivial principal bundles. The obstructions to the existence of equivariant gerbes and their classification are discussed. The choice of different equivariant structures on the same bundle gerbe gives rise to a new type of discrete-torsion ambiguities in the gauged amplitudes. An explicit construction of gerbes equivariant with respect to the adjoint symmetries over compact simply connected simple Lie groups is given.Comment: 50 pages, 1 figur

The gauging of two-dimensional bosonic sigma models on world-sheets with defects

We extend our analysis of the gauging of rigid symmetries in bosonic two-dimensional sigma models with Wess-Zumino terms in the action to the case of world-sheets with defects. A structure that permits a non-anomalous coupling of such sigma models to world-sheet gauge fields of arbitrary topology is analysed, together with obstructions to its existence, and the classification of its inequivalent choices.Comment: 94 pages, 1 figur