5-brane webs and generalised symmetries
Abstract
5-brane webs provide a powerful geometric description of five-dimensional quantum field theories, encoding data such as symmetries and dualities. Although the extraction of continuous 0-form symmetries from these systems is well understood, their higher-form symmetries have received less attention. We develop a microscopic prescription for determining 1-form symmetries directly from 5-brane webs. BPS Wilson lines are represented by configurations of D3-branes and (p,q) strings, while their screening by local operators is realised through string junctions, Higgsing, and Hanany-Witten transitions. For webs without orientifold planes, this construction reproduces the Smith normal form prescription based on asymptotic 7-brane charges. We extend the analysis to webs containing O7- and O5- planes. For O7--planes, the resolved 7-brane charges can be incorporated into the Smith normal form, whereas for O7+-planes we propose an effective charge prescription and test it in both Lagrangian and non-Lagrangian examples. For webs with O5-planes, configurations of half-D3-branes reproduce the centre symmetries of Spin gauge theories and their breaking by matter. Crucially, we find that the 1-form symmetry of an O5-plane system is not determined by asymptotic data alone, but can depend on the local structure of the brane configuration near the orientifold.
Related
- M-theory geometries from five-brane webs, seven-branes, and T-branes
- Scaling similarity and generalised conformal symmetry in D2-brane holography
- Generalised Symmetries, Anomalies, and Maximal Branches of 3d Chern-Simons Matter Theories
- Generalised global symmetries in 5d 𝒩=1 theories from the blow-up equations
- Spectral networks, finite webs, and the T3 cubic differential
BibTeX
@misc{akhond20265brane,
title = {{5-brane webs and generalised symmetries}},
author = {Mohammad Akhond and Federico Carta and Sung-Soo Kim and Futoshi Yagi},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.06794},
eprint = {2611.06794},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.06794},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - 5-brane webs and generalised symmetries
AU - Mohammad Akhond
AU - Federico Carta
AU - Sung-Soo Kim
AU - Futoshi Yagi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/04
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.06794
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.06794
AB - 5-brane webs provide a powerful geometric description of five-dimensional quantum field theories, encoding data such as symmetries and dualities. Although the extraction of continuous 0-form symmetries from these systems is well understood, their higher-form symmetries have received less attention. We develop a microscopic prescription for determining 1-form symmetries directly from 5-brane webs. BPS Wilson lines are represented by configurations of D3-branes and (p,q) strings, while their screening by local operators is realised through string junctions, Higgsing, and Hanany-Witten transitions. For webs without orientifold planes, this construction reproduces the Smith normal form prescription based on asymptotic 7-brane charges. We extend the analysis to webs containing O7- and O5- planes. For O7^--planes, the resolved 7-brane charges can be incorporated into the Smith normal form, whereas for O7^+-planes we propose an effective charge prescription and test it in both Lagrangian and non-Lagrangian examples. For webs with O5-planes, configurations of half-D3-branes reproduce the centre symmetries of Spin gauge theories and their breaking by matter. Crucially, we find that the 1-form symmetry of an O5-plane system is not determined by asymptotic data alone, but can depend on the local structure of the brane configuration near the orientifold.
ER -