Anomaly of (2,0) Theories

TL;DR

This paper calculates the gravitational and axial anomalies for D-type (2,0) theories on M5-branes at orbifold fixed points, extending previous work on A-type theories and confirming a conjecture about anomaly structure.

Contribution

It extends the anomaly analysis from A-type to D-type (2,0) theories, incorporating orbifold effects and confirming a conjecture on anomaly polynomial structure.

Findings

Derived the anomaly polynomial for D-type (2,0) theories at orbifold fixed points.

Extended previous anomaly calculations to include orbifold effects.

Confirmed consistency with Intriligator's conjecture.

Abstract

We compute gravitational and axial anomaly for D-type (2,0) theories realized on N pairs of coincident M5-branes at R^5/Z_2 orbifold fixed point. We first summarize work by Harvey, Minasian, and Moore on A-type (2,0) theories, and then extend it to include the effect of orbifold fixed point. The net anomaly inflow follows when we further take into account the consistency of T^5/Z_2 M-theory orbifold. We deduce that the world-volume anomaly is given by N{\cal J}_8 + N(2N-1)(2N-2) p_2/24 where {\cal J}_8 is the anomaly polynomial of a free tensor multiplet and p_2 is the second Pontryagin class associated with the normal bundle. This result is in accord with Intriligator's conjecture.