Higher Axion Strings

Abstract: We study the minimal requirements to obtain axion strings for axions with exponentially good quality. These ingredients appear in theories where an axion coming from a higher-form gauge field mixes with the phase of a complex scalar field in a situation that resembles higher-groups. The resulting axion is perturbatively massless and inherits a high-quality shift symmetry from the global higher-form symmetry while being compatible with a post-inflationary axion scenario. Due to differences and resemblances with both, extra-dimensional and field theory axions, we call this field the higher axion. To this end, we study a toy model on a 5-dimensional manifold with boundary. The boundary hosts the complex scalar that provides axion strings through standard mechanisms. In addition, we study how these scenarios may arise in heterotic string theory and type II string compactifications.