SciPost Submission Page
Symmetry Operators and Gravity
by Ibrahima Bah, Patrick Jefferson, Konstantinos Roumpedakis, Thomas Waddleton
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Patrick Jefferson |
| Submission information | |
|---|---|
| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.08858v2 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | Oct. 1, 2025 |
| Date submitted: | Sept. 20, 2025, 2:36 p.m. |
| Submitted by: | Patrick Jefferson |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
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| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Theoretical |
Abstract
We argue that topological operators for continuous symmetries written in terms of currents need regularization, which effectively gives them a small but finite width. The regulated operator is a finite tension object which fluctuates. In the zero-width limit these fluctuations freeze, recovering the properties of a topological operator. When gravity is turned on, the zero-width limit becomes ill-defined, thereby prohibiting the existence of topological operators.
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List of changes
Report 1:
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The Jacobian factors for the examples we describe in the paper are actually trivial (i.e., equal to unity). We added footnote 26 in the revision to indicate that this is the case, and moreover it is straightforwardly checked.
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Added a comment clarifying this argument, directly beneath the un-numbered equation on page 3.
Report 2:
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Fixed typo below (21).
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We corrected two typos that address the referee's comments, namely we changed f to f'^2 (please see footnote 28 in the revision) and changed T/2 to T for the Nambu-Goto action.
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Unfortunately, regarding the fermionic case, we do not have any more useful comments to make about the technicalities at the moment, so we did not expand on the discussion.
Published as SciPost Phys. 19, 116 (2025)