Contributor info: Prof. Ibrahima Bah

Ibrahima Bah, Patrick Jefferson, Konstantinos Roumpedakis, Thomas Waddleton

SciPost Phys. 19, 116 (2025) · published 29 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We argue that topological operators for continuous symmetries written in terms of currents need regularization, which effectively gives them a small but finite width. The regulated operator is a finite tension object which fluctuates. In the zero-width limit these fluctuations freeze, recovering the properties of a topological operator. When gravity is turned on, the zero-width limit becomes ill-defined, thereby prohibiting the existence of topological operators.