TY - JOUR
T1 - Anomaly of the Electromagnetic Duality of Maxwell Theory
AU - Hsieh, Chang Tse
AU - Tachikawa, Yuji
AU - Yonekura, Kazuya
PY - 2019/10/14
Y1 - 2019/10/14
N2 - 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 SL(2,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.
AB - 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 SL(2,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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073826082&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85073826082&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.161601
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.161601
M3 - Article
C2 - 31702337
AN - SCOPUS:85073826082
VL - 123
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
SN - 0031-9007
IS - 16
M1 - 161601
ER -