A Tale of Bulk and Branes: Symmetry TFT of 6D SCFTs from IIB/F-theory

TL;DR

This paper derives the 7D Symmetry Topological Field Theory for 6D SCFTs from IIB/F-theory, revealing new terms from flavor 7-branes and aiming to classify these theories paralleling 6D SCFT classifications.

Contribution

It provides a general derivation of 7D SymTFT actions from IIB compactifications, including new terms from flavor 7-branes, and suggests a classification scheme for these theories.

Findings

Derived general form of 7D SymTFT actions from IIB compactification.

Identified new terms in SymTFT from flavor 7-branes.

Crosschecked results with holographic and M-theory approaches.

Abstract

We study the 7D Symmetry Topological Field Theory (SymTFT) associated to a 6D SCFT from the IIB/F-theory geometric engineering approach. The 6D (2,0) or (1,0) SCFT is constructed from IIB on a non-compact complex surface possibly with 7-branes. We derive the general form of 7D SymTFT actions from the compactification of IIB action on the boundary link of the base manifold of an elliptic Calabi-Yau threefold, for both the cases with or without flavor 7-branes intersecting the boundary link. Along the way we found new terms in the SymTFT action from the worldvolume action of flavor 7-branes involving the flavor center symmetries. We crosscheck the results against those obtained from either holographic constructions or the dual M-theory picture. Our construction potentially leads to a classification of the 7D SymTFTs which parallels the known geometric classification of the 6D SCFTs.