Gauging the Gauge and Anomaly Resolution

In this paper, we explore the algebraic and geometric structures that arise from a procedure we dub “gauging the gauge”, which involves the promotion of a certain global, coordinate independent symmetry to a local one. By gauging the global 1-form shift symmetry in a gauge theory, we demonstrate that the structure of a Lie algebra crossed-module and its associated 2-gauge theory arises. Moreover, performing this procedure once again on a 2-gauge theory generates a 3-gauge theory, based on Lie algebra 2-crossed-modules. As such, we show that the physical procedure of “gauging the gauge” can be understood mathematically as a categorification. Applications of such higher-gauge structures are considered, including general relativity, high-energy physics and condensed matter theory. Of particular interest is the mechanism of anomaly resolution, in which one introduces a higher-gauge structure to absorb curvature defects. This mechanism has been shown to allow one to consistently gauge an anomalous background symmetry in QFT.