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Modified Abelian gauge theories

Markus Dierigl1,*, Ruben Minasian2,†, and Dušan Novičić3,‡

  • *Contact author: markus.dierigl@cern.ch
  • †Contact author: ruben.minasian@ipht.fr
  • ‡Contact author: novicic@mpp.mpg.de
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 065021 – Published 23 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/d5yt-jql7

Abstract

The topological properties of field configurations in gauge theory contain important data about the (generalized) global symmetries of the theory as well as potential inconsistencies in the form of gauge anomalies. In this work we modify the topological classes of Abelian p-form fields, generating new global variants of gauge theories. These modifications implement constraints directly on the classifying space of the gauge field and its cohomology classes via homotopy fiber construction. This general approach allows us to investigate the universal effects of the constraints on the conserved global charges encoded in gauge characteristic classes. We further demonstrate that this procedure generically leads to new topological sectors introducing additional global charges and anomalies in the modified gauge theories.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 065021– Published 23 September, 2026
  • Received 3 April 2026
  • Accepted 23 July 2026
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