When calculating scattering amplitudes in gauge and gravitational theories one encounters infrared (IR) divergences associated with massless fields. These are known to be artifacts of constructing a quantum field theory starting with free fields, and the assumption that in the asymptotic limit (i.e. well before and after a scattering event) the incoming and outgoing states are non-interacting. In 1937, Bloch and Nordsieck provided a technical procedure eliminating the IR divergences in the cross-sections. However, this did not address the source of the problem: A detailed analysis reveals that, in quantum electrodynamics (QED) and in perturbative quantum gravity (PQG), the interactions cannot be ignored even in the asymptotic limit. This is due to the infinite range of the massless force-carrying bosons. By taking these asymptotic interactions into account, one can find a picture changing operator that transforms the free Fock states into asymptotically interacting Faddeev- Kulish (FK) states. These FK states are charged (massive) particles surrounded by a “cloud” of soft photons (gravitons) and will render all scattering processes infrared finite already at an S-matrix level. Recently it has been found that the FK states are closely related to asymptotic symmetries. In the case of QED the FK states are eigenstates of the large gauge transformations – U(1) transformations with a non-vanishing transformation parameter at infinity. For PQG the FK states are eigenstates of the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) transformations – the asymptotic symmetry group of an asymptotically flat spacetime. It also appears that the FK states are related the Wilson lines in the Mandelstam quantization scheme. This would allow one to obtain the physical FK states through geometrical or symmetry arguments. We attempt to clarify this relation and present a derivation of the FK states in PQG from the gravitational Wilson line in the eikonal approximation, a result that is novel to this thesis.

We study Cheeger-Simons differential characters in order to define higher form U(1) gauge fields and their Wilson lines. We then go on to define generalized global symmetries. This is a topological formulation of symmetries which has interesting consequences when the charged operators extend through space. Our main source of such charged operators are the generalized Wilson lines. A higher form Noether theorem and a Ward identity are given for transformations of Wilson lines. As examples of quantum field theories with generalized symmetries we cover Sigma models, Maxwell theory and BF-theory. These are examples of Z, U(1) and Zn symmetries respectively. Finally we discuss spontaneous symmetry breaking for higher dimensional symmetries and a Goldstone theorem is provided. These massless Goldstone bosons are shown to have internal structure corresponding to non-zero spin. The photon is identified as the spin one Goldstone boson in QED. Our review of generalized symmetries is more formal than the ones in other papers. This makes various points explicit and leads to general selection rules. Many results of previous papers are reproduced in detail.