2025/09/19 by Matteo Bertolini, Lorenzo Di Pietro, Bertolini, Matteo +6 · 3 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Seismic Imaging and Inversion Techniques
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.16165
openalex publication_date 2025/09/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate the symmetry structure of five-dimensional Yang-Mills theories with \mathfraksu(N) gauge algebra. These theories feature intertwined 0-, 1-, and 2-form symmetries, depending on the global variant one is considering. In the SU(N) theory, there is a mixed 't Hooft anomaly between the instantonic 0-form symmetry and the electric 1-form symmetry. We show that in the PSU(N) theory this translates into a ℤN extension of the instantonic symmetry, generated by an invertible condensation defect of the magnetic 2-form symmetry. We identify the charged configurations as linked 't Hooft surfaces, while pointlike instanton operators remain insensitive to the extension. We generalize our analysis to the SU(N)/ℤk global form and show that similar results hold, embedded now in a 3-group structure for generic k. We then apply our findings to SO(3) supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. We determine the global form of the enhanced instantonic symmetry of its superconformal UV completion, showing that it arises through a similar symmetry extension mechanism from the parent E1 theory, which is the UV completion of SU(2) supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. Finally, we recast our results in the language of the symmetry topological field theory. As a warm-up, we also analyze Maxwell theory, highlighting analogous features involving continuous symmetries and composite currents.