Global anomalies on orbifolds (Q5903528)

The calculation of global anomalies in quantum field theory was initiated by Witten, who went on to apply his methods in string theory. A mathematical interpretation of his work was given by several people, including the first author. The second author had derived similar formulas in the context of orbifolds. In this paper the authors unify their treatments, giving a definitive version of the global anomaly for heterotic string theory formulated on orbifolds. The anomaly is now a certain characteristic class in group cohomology. For abelian orbifolds they recover the previous results, the so-called ``level matching conditions''. For nonabelian orbifolds there are new constraints, which are pursued in some examples.