March 14, 2023
TITLE: SymTFTs, Differential Cohomology, and Geometric Engineering

ABSTRACT: The symmetry data of a quantum field theory (QFT) in d spacetime dimensions is conveniently captured by an auxiliary topological field theory in d+1 spacetime dimensions, referred to as the Symmetry Topological Field Theory (SymTFT). After a brief introduction to the SymTFT, I will focus on the following question: how can we compute the SymTFT for a QFT engineered geometrically in string theory/M-theory? The formalism of differential cohomology provides systematic tools to address this problem, as I will illustrate in some examples.