Abstract
We argue that there is an obstruction to placing theories with ’t Hooft anomalies on manifolds with a boundary, unless the symmetry associated with the anomaly can be represented as a non-invariance under an Abelian transformation. For a two dimensional conformal field theory we further demonstrate that all anomalies except the usual trace anomaly are incompatible on a manifold with a boundary. Our findings extend a known result whereby, under mild assumptions, Lagrangian theories with chiral matter cannot be canonically quantized.
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Jensen, K., Shaverin, E. & Yarom, A. ’t Hooft anomalies and boundaries. J. High Energ. Phys. 2018, 85 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2018)085
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2018)085