Higher derivative three-form gauge theories and their supersymmetric extension

We investigate three-form gauge theories with higher derivative interactions and their supersymmetric extensions in four space-time dimensions. For the bosonic three-form gauge theories, we show that derivatives on the field strength of the 3-form gauge field yield a tachyon as far as the Lagrangian contains a quadratic kinetic term, while such the term with opposite sign gives rise to a ghost. We confirm that there is neither a tachyon nor a ghost when all higher derivative terms are given by functions of the field strength. For this ghost/tachyon-free Lagrangian, we determine the boundary term necessary for the consistency between the equation of motion and energy-momentum tensor. For supersymmetric extensions, we present ghost/tachyon-free higher derivative interactions of arbitrary order of the field strength and corresponding boundary terms as well.Comment: 46 pages; v2: references added, published versio

Spatially Modulated Vacua in a Lorentz-invariant Scalar Field Theory

Spatial modulation has been studied for a long time in condensed matter, nuclear matter and quark matter, so far in non-relativistic field theories. In this paper, spatially modulated vacua at zero temperature and zero density are studied in relativistic field theories. We first propose an adaptation of the Nambu-Goldstone theorem to higher derivative theories under the assumption of the absence of ghosts: when a global symmetry is spontaneously broken due to vacuum expectation values of space-time derivatives of fields, a Nambu-Goldstone (NG) boson appears without a canonical kinetic (quadratic derivative) term with a quartic derivative term in the modulated direction while a Higgs boson appears with a canonical kinetic term. We demonstrate this in a simple model allowing (meta)stable modulated vacuum of a phase modulation (Fulde-Ferrell state), where an NG mode associated with spontaneously broken translational and $U(1)$ symmetries appears.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, title changed, published versio

Generalized chiral instabilities, linking numbers, and non-invertible symmetries

We demonstrate a universal mechanism of a class of instabilities in infrared regions for massless Abelian $p$-form gauge theories with topological interactions, which we call generalized chiral instabilities. Such instabilities occur in the presence of initial electric fields for the $p$-form gauge fields. We show that the dynamically generated magnetic fields tend to decrease the initial electric fields and result in configurations with linking numbers, which can be characterized by non-invertible global symmetries. The so-called chiral plasma instability and instabilities of the axion electrodynamics and $(4+1)$-dimensional Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory in electric fields can be described by the generalized chiral instabilities in a unified manner. We also illustrate this mechanism in the $(2+1)$-dimensional Goldstone-Maxwell model in electric field.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figure