4d Maxwell on the Edge: Global Aspects of Boundary Conditions and Duality

Abstract: We revisit Maxwell theory in 4d with a boundary, with particular attention to the global properties of the boundary conditions, both in the free (topological) and interacting (conformal) cases. We analyze the fate of Wilson-'t Hooft lines, identifying the subset that is trivialized on the boundary and the ones that become topological, thus generating a boundary 1-form symmetry. We further study how the boundary conditions are mapped to each other by 3d topological interfaces implementing bulk dualities and rescalings of the coupling. Together, these interfaces generate an $SL(2,\mathbb{Q})$ action on the bulk complexified coupling $\tau$, and they generalize the usual $SL(2,\mathbb{Z})$ action on 3d CFTs by including both topological and non-topological manipulations within a unified framework. We then show how to recover our results in a streamlined way from a SymTFT picture in 5d with corners. Finally, we comment on the possible inclusion of non-compact 3d edge modes.