Anomalies for Galilean fields

Abstract

We initiate a systematic study of ‘t Hooft anomalies in Galilean field theories, focusing on two questions therein. In the first, we consider the non-relativistic theories obtained from a discrete light-cone quantization (DLCQ) of a relativistic theory with flavor or gravitational anomalies. We find that these anomalies survive the DLCQ, becoming mixed flavor/boost or gravitational/boost anomalies. We also classify the pure Weyl anomalies of Schrödinger theories, which are Galilean conformal field theories (CFTs) with z = 2. There are no pure Weyl anomalies in even spacetime dimension, and the lowest-derivative anomalies in odd dimension are in one-to-one correspondence with those of a relativistic CFT in one dimension higher. These results classify many of the anomalies that arise in the field theories dual to string theory on Schrödinger spacetimes.