Non-Abelian and type-A conformal anomalies from Euler descent

A bstract We classify the non-Abelian anomaly of the Euclidean conformal group SO (2 n + 1 , 1) in 2 n dimensions via Stora-Zumino descent from its Euler invariant polynomial in 2 n + 2 dimensions. In this way, we place the conformal anomaly on the same footing as ordinary perturbative ’t Hooft anomalies. We also explore the relation of the non-Abelian anomaly to the known type-A Weyl anomaly , which involves projecting into a Weyl cocycle. We discuss implications for anomaly inflow, and ’t Hooft anomaly matching for the full conformal group with a Wess-Zumino-Witten term. In 4d, this enables the construction of a dilaton effective action matching the full non-Abelian SO (5, 1) conformal anomaly.