Yang-Mills, Gravity, and 2D String Symmetries

Abstract

It is well known that by using the infinite dimensional symmetries that issue from string theories, one can build 2D geometric field theories. These 2D field theories can be identified with gravitational and gauge anomalies that arise in the presence of background gauge and gravitational anomalies. In this work we consider the background fields as residuum from reducing higher dimensional field theories to two dimensions. This implies a new relationship between string theory and field theories. We identify the isotropy equations of the distinct orbits as the Gauß's law constraints of a Yang-Mills theory coupled to a gravitational theory that has been evaluated on a two-dimensional manifold. We show explicitly how one may recover the higher dimensional theories and extract this new theory of gravity and its coupling to Yang-Mills theory. This gravitational theory is able to couple to Yang-Mills via a torsion-like term and yet maintain gauge invariance. Also this new theory of gravity suggest a natural distinction between cosmology and local gravitation. We comment on the analogue of Chern-Simons theory for diffeomorphism, the vacuum structure of gravity, and also the possibility of extracting explicit realizations of distinct differentiable structures in four dimensions.