SymTFT, Protected Gaplessness, and Spontaneous Breaking of Non-invertible Symmetries

Abstract: In recent years we have learned that several four-dimensional field theories can manifest non-invertible zero-form symmetries generalizing the Kramers-Wannier duality defect of the 2d critical Ising model. Several recent works by various groups have observed a deep interplay among such non-invertible symmetries in 3+1 dimensions, their anomalies, and the properties of the ground state(s). The purpose of this work is to present a first coarse classification of all possible classes of non-invertible symmetries of this type that can either enforce gaplessness or be spontaneously broken in the infrared exploiting the topological symmetry theory formalism. Our methods also generalize to non-invertible KW-like duality symmetries graded by non-abelian finite subgroups. As a first applications of our results we present examples in the context of supersymmetric models. Along the way we notice the potential for further global structures that could be realized by non-SUSY versions of Argyres-Douglas type fixed points.