On asymptotically and anomaly-free SU(N) chiral gauge theories for arbitrarily large N
Abstract
A large catalog of asymptotically free and anomaly-free SU(N) chiral gauge theories that admit a large-N limit was constructed by Eichten, Kang, and Koh. Here we compute the global structure of their symmetry groups and tabulate the 't Hooft anomalies of the faithful symmetries, including those that are visible only in backgrounds carrying fractional flux. Most theories in the catalog contain fundamentally charged matter and support no genuine one-form electric center symmetry. However, fractional fluxes still arise from the faithful quotient and contribute to the anomaly in the same way as a two-form background for a one-form symmetry. The anomalies are computed using two methods, first with the descent procedure, and second by placing the theory on a four-torus, which supports twisted fluxes for background gauge fields. We discuss a selection of candidate IR behaviors and present a general discussion of how matching the anomalies associated with fractional flux can constrain infrared descriptions beyond the imposition of ordinary zero-form anomaly matching at the level of triangle diagrams. Based on large-N reasoning, we formulate a new proposal for the IR behavior of a pair of models, consistent with the ordinary zero-form 't Hooft anomaly matching conditions. In this case the matching condition involving fractional flux is satisfied automatically as a consequence of ordinary matching.
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BibTeX
@misc{beck2026asymptotically,
title = {{On asymptotically and anomaly-free SU(N) chiral gauge theories for arbitrarily large N}},
author = {Kort Beck and Patrick Draper},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.21129},
eprint = {2609.21129},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21129},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - On asymptotically and anomaly-free SU(N) chiral gauge theories for arbitrarily large N
AU - Kort Beck
AU - Patrick Draper
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.21129
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21129
AB - A large catalog of asymptotically free and anomaly-free SU(N) chiral gauge theories that admit a large-N limit was constructed by Eichten, Kang, and Koh. Here we compute the global structure of their symmetry groups and tabulate the 't Hooft anomalies of the faithful symmetries, including those that are visible only in backgrounds carrying fractional flux. Most theories in the catalog contain fundamentally charged matter and support no genuine one-form electric center symmetry. However, fractional fluxes still arise from the faithful quotient and contribute to the anomaly in the same way as a two-form background for a one-form symmetry. The anomalies are computed using two methods, first with the descent procedure, and second by placing the theory on a four-torus, which supports twisted fluxes for background gauge fields. We discuss a selection of candidate IR behaviors and present a general discussion of how matching the anomalies associated with fractional flux can constrain infrared descriptions beyond the imposition of ordinary zero-form anomaly matching at the level of triangle diagrams. Based on large-N reasoning, we formulate a new proposal for the IR behavior of a pair of models, consistent with the ordinary zero-form 't Hooft anomaly matching conditions. In this case the matching condition involving fractional flux is satisfied automatically as a consequence of ordinary matching.
ER -