Algebroid Yang-Mills Theories

A framework for constructing new kinds of gauge theories is suggested. Essentially it consists in replacing Lie algebras by Lie or Courant algebroids. Besides presenting novel topological theories defined in arbitrary spacetime dimensions, we show that equipping Lie algebroids E with a fiber metric having sufficiently many E-Killing vectors leads to an astonishingly mild deformation of ordinary Yang-Mills theories: Additional fields turn out to carry no propagating modes. Instead, they serve as moduli parameters gluing together in part different Yang-Mills theories. This leads to a symmetry enhancement at critical points of these fields, as is also typical for String effective field theories.