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arXiv · 0808.2130

Electric/magnetic duality for chiral gauge theories with anomaly cancellation

Jan De Rydt·Torsten T. Schmidt·Mario Trigiante·Antoine Van Proeyen·Marco Zagermann
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Abstract

We show that 4D gauge theories with Green-Schwarz anomaly cancellation and possible generalized Chern-Simons terms admit a formulation that is manifestly covariant with respect to electric/magnetic duality transformations. This generalizes previous work on the symplectically covariant formulation of anomaly-free gauge theories as they typically occur in extended supergravity, and now also includes general theories with (pseudo-)anomalous gauge interactions as they may occur in global or local N=1 supersymmetry. This generalization is achieved by relaxing the linear constraint on the embedding tensor so as to allow for a symmetric 3-tensor related to electric and/or magnetic quantum anomalies in these theories. Apart from electric and magnetic gauge fields, the resulting Lagrangians also feature two-form fields and can accommodate various unusual duality frames as they often appear, e.g., in string compactifications with background fluxes.

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Jan De Rydt, Torsten T. Schmidt, Mario Trigiante, Antoine Van Proeyen, Marco Zagermann. 2009-02-07. Electric/magnetic duality for chiral gauge theories with anomaly cancellation. https://doi.org/10.1088/1126-6708%2F2008%2F12%2F105

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