Holomorphic Surface Defects in Four-Dimensional Chern-Simons Theory

Abstract

We derive the framing anomaly of four-dimensional holomorphic-topological Chern-Simons theory formulated on the product of a topological surface and the complex plane. We show that the presence of this anomaly allows one to couple four-dimensional Chern-Simons theory to holomorphic field theories with Kac-Moody symmetry, where the Kac-Moody level $k$ is critical $k=-h^{\vee}$. Applying this result to a holomorphic sigma model into a complex coadjoint orbit, we derive that four-dimensional Chern-Simons theory admits holomorphic monodromy defects.