SciPost Submission Page
Complete Topological Quantization of Higher Gauge Fields
by Hisham Sati, Urs Schreiber
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Urs Schreiber |
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| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.12431v1 (pdf) |
| Date submitted: | Dec. 21, 2025, 9:57 p.m. |
| Submitted by: | Urs Schreiber |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics Lecture Notes |
| Ontological classification | |
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| Academic field: | Physics |
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| Approach: | Theoretical |
Abstract
After global completion of higher gauge fields (as appearing in higher-dimensional supergravity) by proper flux quantization in extraordinary nonabelian cohomology, the (non-perturbative, renormalized) topological quantum observables and quantum states of solitonic field histories are completely determined through a topological form of light-front quantization. We survey the logic of this construction and expand on aspects of the quantization argument. In the instructive example of 5D Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory (the gauge sector of 5D SuGra) dimensionally reduced to 3D, a suitable choice of flux quantization in Cohomotopy ("Hypothesis h") recovers this way the fine detail of the traditionally renormalized (Wilson loop) quantum observables of abelian Chern-Simons theory and makes novel predictions about anyons in fractional quantum (anomalous) Hall systems. An analogous choice ("Hypothesis H") of global completion of 11D higher Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory (the higher gauge sector of 11D SuGra) realizes various aspects of the topological sector of the conjectural "M-theory" and its M5-branes.