Band structure in Yang-Mills theories

We show how Yang-Mills theory on S-3 x R can exhibit a spectrum with continuous bands if coupled either to a topological 3-form gauge field, or to a dynamical axion with heavy Peccei-Quinn scale. The basic mechanism consists in associating winding histories to a bosonic zero mode whose role is to convert a circle in configuration space into a helix. The zero mode is, respectively, the holonomy of the 3-form field or the axion momentum. In these models different 0 sectors coexist and are only mixed by (non-local) volume operators. Our analysis sheds light on, and extends Seiberg's proposal for modifying the topological sums in quantum field theories. It refutes a recent claim that B + L violation at LHC is unsuppressed.