Geometric symmetries and topological terms in F-theory and field theory

In this thesis we investigate topological aspects and arithmetic structures in quantum field theory and string theory. Particular focus is put on consistent truncations of supergravity and compactifications of F-theory. The first part treats settings of supersymmetry breaking in five dimensions. We focus on an N=4 to N=2 breaking in gauged supergravity. For certain classes of embedding tensors we can analyze the theory around the vacuum to a great extent. Importantly, one-loop corrections to Chern-Simons terms are generically induced which are independent of the supersymmetry-breaking scale. We investigate concrete examples of consistent truncations of supergravity and M-theory which show this N=4 to N=2 breaking pattern in five dimensions. In particular, we analyze necessary conditions for these consistent truncations to be used as effective theories for phenomenology by demanding consistency of the scale-independent corrections to Chern-Simons couplings. The second part is devoted to the study of anomalies and large gauge transformations in circle-reduced gauge theories and F-theory. We consider four- and six-dimensional matter-coupled gauge theories on the circle and classify all large gauge transformations that preserve the boundary conditions of the matter fields. Enforcing that they act consistently on one-loop Chern-Simons couplings in three and five dimensions explicitly yields all higher-dimensional gauge anomaly cancelation conditions. In the context of F-theory compactifications we identify the classified large gauge transformations along the circle with arithmetic structures on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds via the dual M-theory setting. Integer Abelian large gauge transformations correspond to free basis shifts in the Mordell-Weil lattice of rational sections while special fractional non-Abelian large gauge transformations are matched to torsional shifts in the Mordell-Weil group. For integer non-Abelian large gauge transformations we suggest a new geometric group structure on resolved elliptic fibrations. In the same way we also propose a novel group operation for multi-sections in genus-one fibrations without a proper section. We stress that these arithmetic structures ensure the cancelation of all gauge anomalies in F-theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau manifolds.