The chiral anomaly from M theory

TL;DR

This paper proposes a dual M theory description of the chiral anomaly in super Yang-Mills, linking it to spontaneous symmetry breaking and introducing the concept of 'massive isometry' for non-isometric metric angles.

Contribution

It introduces the idea of 'massive isometry' to describe fluctuations of non-isometric angles in G2 holonomy manifolds, connecting geometric features to field theory anomalies.

Findings

Identifies an angle in G2 manifolds dual to the anomalous U(1)_R current.

Develops a theory of 'massive isometry' for non-isometric metric fluctuations.

Links the chiral anomaly to spontaneous symmetry breaking in M theory.

Abstract

We argue that the chiral anomaly of $\Ncal = 1$ super Yang-Mills theory admits a dual description as spontaneous symmetry breaking in M theory on $G_2$ holonomy manifolds. We identify an angle of the $G_2$ background dual to the anomalous $U(1)_R$ current in field theory. This angle is not an isometry of the metric and we therefore develop a theory of ``massive isometry'' to describe fluctuations about such angles. Another example of a massive isometry occurs in the Atiyah-Hitchin metric.