https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-15359-y
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Duality, asymptotic charges and higher form symmetries in p-form gauge theories
1
Mathematics and Physics Department, Roma Tre, Via della Vasca Navale 84, Rome, Italy
2
INFN Roma Tre Section, Physics Department, Via della Vasca Navale 84, Rome, Italy
a This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received:
17
September
2025
Accepted:
23
January
2026
Published online:
14
February
2026
Abstract
The surface charges associated with p-form gauge fields in the Bondi patch of D-dimensional Minkowski spacetime are computed. We show that, under the Hodge duality between the field strengths of the dual formulations, electric-like charges for p-forms are mapped to magnetic-like charges for the dual q-forms, with 
. We observe that the complex combination of electric-like and magnetic-like charges transforms under duality according to a specific Möbius transformation. This leads to a possible construction of CCFT in 
as a Möbius-principal equivariant bundle, together with its associated bundles, in order to recover celestial operators. We prove an existence and uniqueness theorem for the duality map relating the asymptotic electric-like charges of the dual descriptions, and we provide an algebraic-topological interpretation of this map. As a result, the duality map has a topological nature and ensures that the charge of one formulation contains information about the dual formulation, leading to a deeper understanding of gauge theories, the non-trivial charges associated with them, and the duality of their observables. Moreover, we propose a link between higher-form symmetry charges, naturally associated with a p-form gauge theory, and their asymptotic charges. The higher-form charges are reproduced by choosing the gauge parameter to be constant and supported only on an appropriate codimension submanifold. This could partially answer an open question in the celestial holography program.
© The Author(s) 2026
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Funded by SCOAP3.
