Coupling a Cosmic String to a TQFT

Understand

A common framework of particle physics consists of two sectors of particles, such as the Standard Model and a dark sector, with some interaction between them.

• In this work, we initiate the study of a qualitatively different setup in which one of the sectors is a topological quantum field theory (TQFT).
• Instead of particles, the physics of a TQFT only manifests itself in non-trivial spacetime topologies.
• Topological defects provide a natural place to investigate such effects.