We address the nonperturbative structure of topological strings and c=1 matrix models, focusing on understanding the nature of instanton effects alongside with exploring their relation to the large-order behavior of the 1/N expansion. We consider the Gaussian, Penner and Chern-Simons matrix models, together with their holographic duals, the c=1 minimal string at self-dual radius and topological string theory on the resolved conifold. We employ Borel analysis to obtain the exact all-loop multi-instanton corrections to the free energies of the aforementioned models, and show that the leading poles in the Borel plane control the large-order behavior of perturbation theory. We understand the nonperturbative effects in terms of the Schwinger effect and provide a semiclassical picture in terms of eigenvalue tunneling between critical points of the multi-sheeted matrix model effective potentials. In particular, we relate instantons to Stokes phenomena via a hyperasymptotic analysis, providing a smoothing of the nonperturbative ambiguity. Our predictions for the multi-instanton expansions are confirmed within the trans-series set-up, which in the double-scaling limit describes nonperturbative corrections to the Toda equation. Finally, we provide a spacetime realization of our nonperturbative corrections in terms of toric D-brane instantons which, in the double-scaling limit, precisely match D-instanton contributions to c=1 minimal strings.
In a wide range of quantum theoretical settings -- from quantum mechanics to quantum field theory, from gauge theory to string theory -- singularities in the complex Borel plane, usually associated to instantons or renormalons, render perturbation theory ill-defined as they give rise to nonperturbative ambiguities. These ambiguities are associated to choices of an integration contour in the resummation of perturbation theory, along (singular) Stokes directions in the complex Borel plane (rendering perturbative expansions non-Borel summable along any Stokes line). More recently, it has been sho…
Resurgent transseries have recently been shown to be a very powerful construction in order to completely describe nonperturbative phenomena in both matrix models and topological or minimal strings. These solutions encode the full nonperturbative content of a given gauge or string theory, where resurgence relates every (generalized) multi-instanton sector to each other via large-order analysis. The Stokes phase is the adequate gauge theory phase where an 't Hooft large N expansion exists and where resurgent transseries are most simply constructed. This paper addresses the nonperturbative study …
The quest to find a nonperturbative formulation of topological string theory has recently seen two unrelated developments. On the one hand, via quantization of the mirror curve associated to a toric Calabi-Yau background, it has been possible to give a nonperturbative definition of the topological-string partition function. On the other hand, using techniques of resurgence and transseries, it has been possible to extend the string (asymptotic) perturbative expansion into a transseries involving nonperturbative instanton sectors. Within the specific example of the local P2 toric Calabi-Yau thre…
The quantum dilogarithm function of Faddeev is a special function that plays a key role as the building block of quantum invariants of knots and 3-manifolds, of quantum Teichmüller theory and of complex Chern-Simons theory. Motivated by conjectures on resurgence and recent interest in wall-crossing phenomena, we prove that the Borel summation of a formal power series solution of a linear difference equation produces Faddeev's quantum dilogarithm. Along the way, we give an explicit formula for the meromorphic function in Borel plane, locate its poles and residues, and describe the Stokes phenom…
We study a certain class of supersymmetric (SUSY) observables in 3d $\mathcal{N}=2$ SUSY Chern-Simons (CS) matter theories and investigate how their exact results are related to the perturbative series with respect to coupling constants given by inverse CS levels. We show that the observables have nontrivial resurgent structures by expressing the exact results as a full transseries consisting of perturbative and non-perturbative parts. As real mass parameters are varied, we encounter Stokes phenomena at an infinite number of points, where the perturbative series becomes non-Borel-summable due …
We study the Borel summation of the Gromov-Witten potential for the resolved conifold. The Stokes phenomena associated to this Borel summation are shown to encode the Donaldson-Thomas invariants of the resolved conifold, having a direct relation to the Riemann-Hilbert problem formulated by T. Bridgeland. There exist distinguished integration contours for which the Borel summation reproduces previous proposals for the non-perturbative topological string partition functions of the resolved conifold. These partition functions are shown to have another asymptotic expansion at strong topological st…
The cusp anomalous dimension is a ubiquitous quantity in four-dimensional gauge theories, ranging from QCD to maximally supersymmetric N=4 Yang-Mills theory, and it is one of the best investigated observables in the AdS/CFT correspondence. In planar N=4 SYM theory, its perturbative expansion at weak coupling has a finite radius of convergence while at strong coupling it admits an expansion in inverse powers of the 't Hooft coupling which is given by a non-Borel summable asymptotic series. We study the cusp anomalous dimension in the transition regime from strong to weak coupling and argue that…
The holomorphic anomaly equations describe B-model closed topological strings in Calabi-Yau geometries. Having been used to construct perturbative expansions, it was recently shown that they can also be extended past perturbation theory by making use of resurgent transseries. These yield formal nonperturbative solutions, showing integrability of the holomorphic anomaly equations at the nonperturbative level. This paper takes such constructions one step further by working out in great detail the specific example of topological strings in the mirror of the local CP2 toric Calabi-Yau background, …
We investigate the nonperturbative structure of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity at finite cutoff, as given by its proposed formulation in terms of a $T\bar{T}$-deformed Schwarzian quantum mechanics. Our starting point is a careful computation of the disk partition function to all orders in the perturbative expansion in the cutoff parameter. We show that the perturbative series is asymptotic and that it admits a precise completion exploiting the analytical properties of its Borel transform, as prescribed by resurgence theory. The final result is then naturally interpreted in terms of the nonperturbat…
Quantum modularity in refined topological recursion
Laboratoire Mathématique d’Orsay, Université Paris Saclay（奥赛数学实验室，巴黎萨克雷大学）；Kobayashi–Maskawa Institute & Graduate School of Mathematics, Nagoya University（小林诚益川敏英研究所与名古屋大学数学研究科）
When we have two expansions of physical quantity around two different points in parameter space, we can usually construct a family of functions, which interpolates the both expansions. In this paper we study analytic structures of such interpolating functions and discuss their physical implications. We propose that the analytic structures of the interpolating functions provide information on analytic property and Stokes phenomena of the physical quantity, which we approximate by the interpolating functions. We explicitly check our proposal for partition functions of zero-dimensional $φ^4$ theo…
Topological string theory near the conifold point of a Calabi-Yau threefold gives rise to factorially divergent power series which encode the all-genus enumerative information. These series lead to infinite towers of singularities in their Borel plane (also known as "peacock patterns"), and we conjecture that the corresponding Stokes constants are integer invariants of the Calabi-Yau threefold. We calculate these Stokes constants in some toric examples, confirming our conjecture and providing in some cases explicit generating functions for the new integer invariants, in the form of q-series. O…
We study the non-perturbative quantum geometry of the open and closed topological string on the resolved conifold and its mirror. Our tools are finite difference equations in the open and closed string moduli and the resurgence analysis of their formal power series solutions. In the closed setting, we derive new finite difference equations for the refined partition function as well as its Nekrasov-Shatashvili (NS) limit. We write down a distinguished analytic solution for the refined difference equation that reproduces the expected non-perturbative content of the refined topological string. We…
In the previous papers, it is pointed out that a supersymmetric double-well matrix model corresponds to a two-dimensional type IIA superstring theory on a Ramond-Ramond background at the level of correlation functions. This was confirmed by agreement between their planar correlation functions. The supersymmetry in the matrix model corresponds to the target space supersymmetry and it is shown to be spontaneously broken by nonperturbative effect. Furthermore, in the matrix model we computed one-point functions of single-trace operators to all order of genus expansion in its double scaling limit.…
We compute multi-instanton amplitudes in the sine-Gordon quantum mechanics (periodic cosine potential) by integrating out quasi-moduli parameters corresponding to separations of instantons and anti-instantons. We propose an extension of Bogomolnyi--Zinn-Justin prescription for multi-instanton configurations and an appropriate subtraction scheme. We obtain the multi-instanton contributions to the energy eigenvalue of the lowest band at the zeroth order of the coupling constant. For the configurations with only instantons (anti-instantons), we obtain unambiguous results. For those with both inst…
