Chiral gauge theories, generalized anomalies and breakdown of the color-flavor-locked center symmetry

Abstract

We study the strong-interaction dynamics of a class of $4D$ chiral $SU(N)$ gauge theories with a fermion in a symmetric second-rank tensor representation and a number of fermions in an anti-antisymmetric tensor representation, extending the previous work on chiral gauge theories such as the Bars-Yankielowicz and the generalized Georgi-Glashow models. The main tool of our analysis is the anomalies obstructing the gauging of certain 1-form color-flavor-locked center symmetry, together with some flavor symmetries. The matching requirement for these mixed-anomalies strongly favors dynamical Higgs phases caused by bifermion condensate formation, against a confinement phase with no condensates and no symmetry breaking, or a confinement phase with multifermion color-singlet condensates only. Dynamical gauge symmetry breaking and the spontaneous breaking of a $U(1)$ symmetry caused by such condensates mean that the color-flavor-locked 1-form center symmetry itself is lost in the infrared. One is led to a solution, if not unique, which satisfies fully the conventional as well as the new, generalized 't Hooft anomaly matching requirements.