Witten effect, anomaly inflow, and charge teleportation

TL;DR

This paper explores a phenomenon where electric charges are 'teleported' between separated objects via anomaly inflow and Chern-Simons terms, revealing new insights into charge conservation and quantum mechanics on these objects.

Contribution

It introduces a general framework for charge teleportation via anomaly inflow, linking it to the Witten effect and deriving a formula based on linking numbers.

Findings

Charge teleportation occurs without particle exchange.

A formula relating charge transfer to linking numbers is derived.

The Witten effect is explained as a consequence of anomaly inflow.

Abstract

We study a phenomenon that electric charges are "teleported" between two spatially separated objects without exchanging charged particles at all. For example, this phenomenon happens between a magnetic monopole and an axion string in four dimensions, two vortices in three dimensions, and two M5-branes in M-theory in which M2-charges are teleported. This is realized by anomaly inflow into these objects in the presence of cubic Chern-Simons terms. In particular, the Witten effect on magnetic monopoles can be understood as a general consequence of anomaly inflow, which implies that some anomalous quantum mechanics must live on them. Charge violation occurs in the anomalous theories living on these objects, but it happens in such a way that the total charge is conserved between the two spatially separated objects. We derive a formula for the amount of the charge which is teleported between the two objects in terms of the linking number of their world volumes in spacetime.