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  • Open Access

Yang-Mills topology on four-dimensional triangulations

Giuseppe Clemente1,*, Massimo D’Elia1,†, Dániel Németh2,3,‡, and Gianmarco Simonetti1,§

  • *Contact author: giuseppe.clemente@unipi.it
  • †Contact author: massimo.delia@unipi.it
  • ‡Contact author: daniel.nemeth@ru.nl
  • §Contact author: g.simonetti8@studenti.unipi.it
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 034511 – Published 24 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ljx7-qpqp

Abstract

We consider 4D SU(N) gauge theories coupled to gravity in the causal dynamical triangulation (CDT) approach, focusing on the topological classification of the gauge path integral over fixed triangulations. We discretize the topological charge and, after checking the emergence of topology and the continuum scaling on flat triangulations, we show that topology emerges on thermalized triangulations only in the so-called de Sitter phase of CDT, thus enforcing the link between such phase and semiclassical spacetime. We also provide a tool to visualize the topological structures.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 034511– Published 24 February, 2026
  • Received 9 December 2024
  • Accepted 2 February 2026
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