A diffeomorphism anomaly in every dimension

Abstract

Field-theoretic pure gravitational anomalies only exist in $4k+2$ dimensions. However, canonical quantization of non-field-theoretic systems may give rise to diffeomorphism anomalies in any number of dimensions. I present a simple example, where a higher-dimensional generalization of the Virasoro algebra arises upon quantization.

Described Hamiltonian commuting with anomalous diffeomorphism algebra