Higher-form symmetry breaking and holographic flavour

Abstract

We study the realisation of higher-form symmetries in the holographic dual of gauge theories coupled to probe matter in the fundamental. We particularly focus on the dual of U(N) gauge theory coupled to fundamental matter. We demonstrate the existence of a continuous 1-form symmetry associated with the conservation of magnetic flux and show that this symmetry is spontaneously broken in the IR when the flavour degrees of freedom are gapped. We numerically compute the spectral function of the 2-form current and demonstrate the existence of the associated Goldstone mode. We compare to expectations at weak-coupling.