Duality from Topological Symmetry

TL;DR

This paper explores topological gauge theories across various dimensions, revealing how dualities are encoded through symmetric field formulations and gauge-fixing, with novel features in eight-dimensional cases and potential Abelian descriptions.

Contribution

It introduces a unified framework for understanding dualities in topological gauge theories via field-antifield symmetry and gauge-fixing, extending to higher dimensions with new features.

Findings

Duality properties are encoded by construction in topological gauge theories.

Symmetric treatment of fields and duals via field-antifield unification.

Novel features identified in eight-dimensional theories and potential Abelian descriptions.

Abstract

We describe topological gauge theories for which duality properties are encoded by construction. We study them for compact manifolds of dimensions four, eight and two. The fields and their duals are treated symmetrically, within the context of field--antifield unification. Dual formulations correspond to different gauge-fixings of the topological symmetry. We also describe novel features in eight-dimensional theories, and speculate about their possible "Abelian" descriptions.