March 29, 2022

Speaker: Federico Bonetti (Oxford)

Title: Symmetry field theories from string theory

Abstract: The global symmetries of a d-dimensional quantum field theory (QFT), and their ’t Hooft anomalies, are conveniently captured by a topological field theory (TFT) in (d+1) dimensions, which we may refer to as the Symmetry TFT of the given d-dimensional QFT. This point of view has a vast range of applicability: it encompasses both ordinary symmetries, as well as generalized symmetries, and also accounts for global structures. The notion of Symmetry TFT is particularly interesting in the context of QFTs realized in string theory using branes and/or probing singular geometries. A natural question in this framework is: can we systematically extract the Symmetry TFT from the geometric/brane data that define the string setup? In this talk, I’ll illustrate some realizations of this program via concrete examples of brane constructions and geometric engineering.