Anomaly Inflow, Accidental Symmetry, and Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

Abstract

We consider the 6d (1,0) SCFT on a stack of $N$ M5-branes probing a ${\mathbb{C}}^2/{\mathbb{Z}}_2$ singularity. In particular, we study its compactifications to four dimensions on a smooth genus-$g$ Riemann surface with non-trivial flavor flux, yielding a family of 4d CFTs. By tracking the M-theory origin of the global symmetries of the 4d CFTs, we detect the emergence of an accidental symmetry and the spontaneous symmetry breaking of a $U(1)$ generator. These effects are visible from geometric considerations and not apparent from the point of view of the compactification of the 6d field theory. These phenomena leave an imprint on the 't Hooft anomaly polynomial of the 4d CFTs, which is obtained from recently developed anomaly inflow methods in M-theory. In the large-$N$ limit, we identify the gravity dual of the 4d setups to be a class of smooth $Ad{S}_5$ solutions first discussed by Gauntlett-Martelli-Sparks-Waldram. Using our anomaly polynomial, we compute the conformal central charge and a non-Abelian flavor central charge at large $N$, finding agreement with the holographic predictions.

References in corpus (36)

• Building an AdS/CFT superconductor
• N=2 dualities
• Breaking an Abelian gauge symmetry near a black hole horizon
• Correlation functions in the CFT(d)/AdS(d+1) correpondence
• Open P-Branes
• The Exact Superconformal R-Symmetry Maximizes a
• Eleven Dimensional Origin of String/String Duality: A One Loop Test
• Five-Brane Effective Action In M-Theory
• Supersymmetric AdS_5 solutions of M-theory
• Four-Dimensional SCFTs from M5-Branes
• Branes and Six Dimensional Supersymmetric Theories
• Branes at Orbifolds versus Hanany Witten in Six Dimensions
• Anomaly polynomial of general 6d SCFTs
• Non-abelian Tensor-multiplet Anomalies
• Sicilian gauge theories and N=1 dualities
• New Phases of String Theory and 6d RG Fixed Points via Branes at Orbifold Singularities
• A Note on Enhanced Gauge Symmetries in M- and String Theory
• Geometric Engineering, Mirror Symmetry and 6d (1,0) -> 4d, N=2
• Consistency Conditions for Branes at Orbifold Singularities
• Branes and Six Dimensional Fixed Points
• Two-dimensional SCFTs from D3-branes
• AdS spacetimes from wrapped M5 branes
• Universality of the Operator Product Expansions of SCFT_4
• AdS/CFT Dual Pairs from M5-Branes on Riemann Surfaces
• E-String Theory on Riemann Surfaces
• D-type Conformal Matter and SU/USp Quivers
• Compactification of 6d minimal SCFTs on Riemann surfaces
• Compactifications of 6d $N=(1,0)$ SCFTs with non-trivial Stiefel-Whitney classes
• Compactifications of ADE conformal matter on a torus
• New Seiberg Dualities from N=2 Dualities
• Anomaly Inflow for M5-branes on Punctured Riemann Surfaces
• AdS5 solutions from M5-branes on Riemann surface and D6-branes sources
• Central functions and their physical implications
• Class $\mathcal{S}$ Anomalies from M-theory Inflow
• On the torus compactifications of $Z_2$ orbifolds of E-string theories
• Structure of Anomalies of 4d SCFTs from M5-branes, and Anomaly Inflow

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Discrete and higher-form symmetries in SCFTs from wrapped M5-branes
• Rotating multi-charge spindles and their microstates
• Anomalies, Black strings and the charged Cardy formula
• Anomaly Inflow Methods for SCFT Constructions in Type IIB
• M5-branes Probing Flux Backgrounds
• The Geometry of Decoupling Fields
• Rank $Q$ E-String on Spheres with Flux