Interacting chiral form field theories and $$ T\overline{T} $$-like flows in six and higher dimensions

Abstract

In this paper we initiate the study of six-dimensional non-linear chiral two-form gauge theories as deformations of free chiral two-form gauge theories driven by stress-tensor $$ T\overline{T} $$ T T ¯ -like flows. To lay the background for this study, we elaborate on the relationship between different Lagrangian formulations of duality-invariant p-form theories and corresponding $$ T\overline{T} $$ T T ¯ -like flows in various dimensions. To this end we propose a new formulation which (i) is a generalization of the four-dimensional construction by Ivanov, Nurmagambetov and Zupnik (INZ) and (ii) turns into the PST formulation upon integrating out an auxiliary self-dual field. We elucidate space-time covariant properties of the PST formulation by clarifying and making use of its relation to the INZ-type formulation and to a so-called “clone” construction.