We continue the study of 3d ${\mathcal N}=2$ Chern-Simons (CS) quiver gauge theories on $Σ_{\mathfrak{g}}\times S^1$. Using localization results, we compute the twisted index of recently constructed SCFTs in the large rank limit. According to AdS/CFT correspondence, this field theory computation gives a prediction for two quantities corresponding to their holographic duals: the volumes of certain 7-dimensional Sasaki-Einstein manifolds and the entropy of black holes in $\text{AdS}_4\times Y_7$.
In quiver quantum mechanics with 4 supercharges, supersymmetric ground states are known to be in one-to-one correspondence with Dolbeault cohomology classes on the moduli space of stable quiver representations. Using supersymmetric localization, the refined Witten index can be expressed as a residue integral with a specific contour prescription, originally due to Jeffrey and Kirwan, depending on the stability parameters. On the other hand, the physical picture of quiver quantum mechanics describing interactions of BPS black holes predicts that the refined Witten index of a non-Abelian quiver c…
For D=4 BPS state construction, counting, and wall-crossing thereof, quiver quantum mechanics offers two alternative approaches, the Coulomb phase and the Higgs phase, which sometimes produce inequivalent counting. The authors have proposed, in arXiv:1205.6511, two conjectures on the precise relationship between the two, with some supporting evidences. Higgs phase ground states are naturally divided into the Intrinsic Higgs sector, which is insensitive to wall-crossings and thus an invariant of quiver, plus a pulled-back ambient cohomology, conjectured to be an one-to-one image of Coulomb phas…
Quiver quantum mechanics is invariant under Seiberg duality. A mathematical consequence is that the cohomology of the Higgs branch moduli space is invariant under mutations of the quiver. The Coulomb branch formula, on the other hand, conjecturally expresses the Poincaré / Dolbeault polynomial of the Higgs branch moduli space in terms of certain quantities known as single-centered indices. In this work we determine the transformations of these single-centered indices under mutations. Moreover, we generalize these mutations to quivers whose nodes carry single-centered indices different from uni…
Mirror symmetry has proven to be a powerful tool to study several properties of higher dimensional superconformal field theories upon compactification to three dimensions. We propose a quiver description for the mirror theories of the circle reduction of twisted $A_{2N}$ theories of class $\mathsf{S}$ in four dimensions. Although these quivers bear a resemblance to the star-shaped quivers previously studied in the literature, they contain unitary, symplectic and special orthogonal gauge groups, along with hypermultiplets in the fundamental representation. The vacuum moduli spaces of these quiv…
We show how to exactly calculate the refined indices of N=4 U(1) times U(N) supersymmetric quiver quantum mechanics in the Coulomb branch by using the localization technique. The Coulomb branch localization is discussed from the viewpoint of both non-linear and gauged linear sigma models. A classification of fixed points in the Coulomb branch differs from one in the Higgs branch, but the derived indices completely agree with the results which were obtained by the localization in the Higgs branch. In the Coulomb branch localization, the refined indices can be written as a summation over differe…
We study various conjectural dual descriptions of a stack of M2-branes in M-theory including ADHM, ABJ(M), BLG, discrete gauge theories and quiver Chern-Simons (CS) theories and propose several new dualities of the M2-brane SCFTs by analyzing flavored supersymmetric indices in detail. The mapping of local operators, Coulomb, Higgs and mixed branch operators as well as global symmetries under the dualities are obtained from the precise matching of the indices. Furthermore, we find closed form expressions for the Coulomb limit of the indices of the $U(N)$ ADHM theory and the dual quiver CS theor…
The superconformal index of the quiver gauge theory dual to type IIB string theory on the product of an arbitrary smooth Sasaki-Einstein manifold with five-dimensional AdS space is calculated both from the gauge theory and gravity viewpoints. We find complete agreement. Along the way, we find that the index on the gravity side can be expressed in terms of the Kohn-Rossi cohomology of the Sasaki-Einstein manifold and that the index of a quiver gauge theory equals the Euler characteristic of the cyclic homology of the Ginzburg dg algebra associated to the quiver.
We compute logarithmic corrections to the twisted index $B^g_6$ in four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ and $\mathcal{N}=8$ string theories using the framework of the Quantum Entropy Function. We find that these vanish, matching perfectly with the large--charge expansion of the corresponding microscopic expressions.
We consider the $k$-twisted Nekrasov-Shatashvili limit (NS$_k$ limit) of 5d (K-theoretic) and 6d (elliptic) quiver gauge theory, where one of the multiplicative equivariant parameters is taken to be the $k$-th root of unity. We obtain the extended center of the associated $q$-deformed quiver W-algebras constructed by our formalism [arXiv:1512.08533; arXiv:1608.04651; arXiv:1705.04410], which provides gauge theoretic proof of Bouwknegt-Pilch's statement on the relation to the representation ring of quantum affine algebra.
The Coulomb Branch Formula conjecturally expresses the refined Witten index for $N=4$ Quiver Quantum Mechanics as a sum over multi-centered collinear black hole solutions, weighted by so-called `single-centered' or `pure-Higgs' indices, and suitably modified when the quiver has oriented cycles. On the other hand, localization expresses the same index as an integral over the complexified Cartan torus and auxiliary fields, which by Stokes' theorem leads to the famous Jeffrey-Kirwan residue formula. Here, by evaluating the same integral using steepest descent methods, we show the index is in fact…
In this paper, we calculate the topological free energy for a number of ${\mathcal N} \geq 2$ Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons-matter theories at large $N$ and fixed Chern-Simons levels. The topological free energy is defined as the logarithm of the partition function of the theory on $S^2 \times S^1$ with a topological A-twist along $S^2$ and can be reduced to a matrix integral by exploiting the localization technique. The theories of our interest are dual to a variety of Calabi-Yau four-fold singularities, including a product of two asymptotically locally Euclidean singularities and the cone over var…
We study three-dimensional ${\mathcal N}=2$ supersymmetric gauge theories on ${Σ_g \times S^1}$ with a topological twist along $Σ_g$, a genus-$g$ Riemann surface. The twisted supersymmetric index at genus $g$ and the correlation functions of half-BPS loop operators on $S^1$ can be computed exactly by supersymmetric localization. For $g=1$, this gives a simple UV computation of the 3d Witten index. Twisted indices provide us with a clean derivation of the quantum algebra of supersymmetric Wilson loops, for any Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons-matter theory, in terms of the associated Bethe equations for…
We consider $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal quiver gauge theories in four dimensions and evaluate the chiral/anti-chiral correlators of single-trace operators. We show that it is convenient to form particular twisted and untwisted combinations of these operators suggested by the dual holographic description of the theory. The various twisted sectors are orthogonal and the correlators in each sector have always the same structure, as we show at the lowest orders in perturbation theory with Feynman diagrams. Using localization we then map the computation to a matrix model. In this way we are able…
We study the large $N$ limit of the refined topologically twisted index of three-dimensional $\mathcal{N} = 2$ gauge theories with a holographic dual, which is relevant for counting the number of microstates of rotating, magnetically charged and twisted AdS$_4$ black holes. As a difference with previous computations, we perform a direct saddle point analysis of the relevant matrix model. Among other things we explicitly identify the distribution of gauge magnetic fluxes that contributes at large $N$. The index exhibits a large $N$ factorized form in agreement with the supergravity expectations…
We study new symmetries between A and D type quiver gauge theories with different numbers of colors. We realize these gauge theories with twisted masses via a brane construction that reproduces all the parameters of the Gauge/Bethe correspondence.
We study the twisted indices of $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric gauge theories in three dimensions on spatial $S^{2}$ with an angular momentum refinement. We demonstrate factorisation of the index into holomorphic blocks for the $T[SU(N)]$ theory in the presence of generic fluxes and fugacities. We also investigate the relation between the twisted index, Hilbert series and the moduli space of vortices. In particular, we show that each holomorphic block coincides with a generating function for the $χ_{t}$ genera of the moduli spaces of "local" vortices. The twisted index itself coincides with a …
A twisted quiver bundle is a set of holomorphic vector bundles over a complex manifold, labelled by the vertices of a quiver, linked by a set of morphisms twisted by a fixed collection of holomorphic vector bundles, labelled by the arrows. When the manifold is Kaelher, quiver bundles admit natural gauge-theoretic equations, which unify many known equations for bundles with extra structure. In this paper we prove a Hitchin--Kobayashi correspondence for twisted quiver bundles over a compact Kaehler manifold, relating the existence of solutions to the gauge equations to a stability criterion, and…
For a special family of 4d $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal quiver theories, the worldsheet dual corresponding to the free theory is identified. This result is obtained from the recently proposed worldsheet dual of free $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM by applying a $\mathbb{Z}_k$ orbifold. In support of our proposal we show that the spectrum of both the untwisted as well as the twisted sectors coincides between the two descriptions.
We study the hemisphere partition function of a three-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric $U(N)$ gauge theory with one adjoint and one fundamental hypermultiplet -- the ADHM quiver theory. In particular, we propose a distinguished set of UV boundary conditions which yield Verma modules of the quantised chiral rings of the Higgs and Coulomb branches. In line with a recent proposal by two of the authors in collaboration with M. Bullimore, we show explicitly that the hemisphere partition functions recover the characters of these modules in two limits, and realise blocks gluing exactly to t…
We study spin chains for superconformal quiver gauge theories in the moduli space of N=2 orbifolds. Independent of integrability, which is generally broken, we use the centrally extended SU(2|2) symmetry of the magnons to fix their dispersion relations and two-body S-matrices, as functions of the exactly marginal couplings.
Argyres-Douglas (AD) theories constitute an infinite class of superconformal field theories in four dimensions with a number of interesting properties. We study several new aspects of AD theories engineered in $A$-type class $\mathcal{S}$ with one irregular puncture of Type I or Type II and also a regular puncture. These include conformal manifolds, structures of the Higgs branch, as well as the three dimensional gauge theories coming from the reduction on a circle. The latter admit a description in terms of a linear quiver with unitary and special unitary gauge groups, along with a number of …
Using supersymmetric localization, we consider four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal quiver gauge theories obtained from $\mathbb{Z}_n$ orbifolds of $\mathcal{N}=4$ Super Yang-Mills theory in the large $N$ limit at weak coupling. In particular, we show that: 1) The partition function for arbitrary couplings can be constructed in terms of universal building blocks. 2) It can be computed in perturbation series, which converges uniformly for $|λ_I|<π^2$, where $λ_I$ are the 't Hooft coupling of the gauge groups. 3) The perturbation series for two-point functions can be explicitly comput…
We propose a universal manipulation to obtain Seiberg-like dualities of 3d $\mathcal{N}=2$ general quiver gauge theories with unitary, symplectic and orthogonal gauge groups coupled to fundamental and bifundamental matter fields. We illustrate this with several examples of linear, circular and star-shaped quiver gauge theories. We examine the local operators in the theories by computing supersymmetric indices and also find precise matching for the proposed dualities as strong evidence. We also generalize the dualities in the presence of a boundary on which the theories obey $\mathcal{N}=(0,2)$…
We investigate the N=2 superconformal index for supersymmetric quiver Chern-Simons theories with large N gauge groups. After general arguments about the large N limit, we compute the first few terms in the series expansion of the index for theories proposed as dual theories to homogeneous spaces V^{5,2}, Q^{1,1,1}, Q^{2,2,2}, M^{1,1,1}, and N^{0,1,0}. We confirm that the indices have symmetries expected from the isometries of dual manifolds.
We compute superconformal indices for $\mathcal{N} = 3$ $\hat{ADE}$ Chern-Simons quiver gauge theories with a product gauge group $\prod_i U(N)_i$, using the method of supersymmetric localization. We also perform a large $N$ analysis of the index. This index includes contribution from non zero magnetic flux sector. The fact that these theories have a weakly coupled UV completion in terms of $\mathcal{N}= 3$ supersymmetric Chern-Simons Yang-Mills theories enables us to apply the localization technique. Such theories have dual M-theory description on $\mathrm{AdS}_4\times M_7$, where $M_7$ is a …
We complete the program of 2012.15792 about perturbative approaches for $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal quiver theories in four dimensions. We consider several classes of observables in presence of Wilson loops, and we evaluate them with the help of supersymmetric localization. We compute Wilson loop vacuum expectation values, correlators of multiple coincident Wilson loops and one-point functions of chiral operators in presence of them acting as superconformal defects. We extend this analysis to the most general case considering chiral operators and multiple Wilson loops scattered in all the p…
We propose a general formula for the perturbative large N superconformal index of 5d quiver fixed point theories that have an AdS(6)xS(4)/Z(n) supergravity dual. This index is obtained from the parent theory by projecting to orbifold-invariant states and adding the twisted sector contributions. Our result agrees with expectations from the dual supergravity description. We test our formula against the direct computation of the index for Z(2) and Z(3) and find complete agreement.
We extend the proposal of Berenstein, Maldacena and Nastase to Type IIB superstring propagating on pp-wave over ${\bf R}^4/{\bf Z}_k$ orbifold. We show that first-quantized free string theory is described correctly by the large $N$, fixed gauge coupling limit of ${\cal N}=2$ $[U(N)]^k$ quiver gauge theory. We propose a precise map between gauge theory operators and string states for both untwisted and twisted sectors. We also compute leading-order perturbative correction to the anomalous dimensions of these operators. The result is in agreement with the value deduced from string energy spectru…
We study half-BPS surface operators in four dimensional N=2 SU(N) gauge theories, and analyze their low-energy effective action on the four dimensional Coulomb branch using equivariant localization. We also study surface operators as coupled 2d/4d quiver gauge theories with an SU(N) flavour symmetry. In this description, the same surface operator can be described by different quivers that are related to each other by two dimensional Seiberg duality. We argue that these dual quivers correspond, on the localization side, to distinct integration contours that can be determined by the Fayet-Iliopo…
We consider the phase structure of the linear quiver gauge theory, using the 't Hooft anomaly matching condition. This theory is characterized by the length $K$ of the quiver diagram. When $K$ is even, the symmetry and its anomaly are the same as those of massless QCD. Therefore, one can expect that the spontaneous symmetry breaking similar to the chiral symmetry breaking occurs. On the other hand, when $K$ is odd, the anomaly matching condition is satisfied by the massless composite fermions. We also consider the thermal partition function under the twisted boundary conditions. When $K$ is ev…
This thesis studies the algebro-geometric aspects of supersymmetric abelian gauge theories in three dimensions. The supersymmetric vacua are demonstrated to exhibit a window phenomenon in Chern-Simons levels, which is analogous to the window phenomenon in quantum K-theory with level structures. This correspondence between three-dimensional gauge theories and quantum K-theory is investigated from the perspectives of semi-classical vacua, twisted chiral rings, and twisted indices. In particular, the twisted index admits an algebro-geometric interpretation as the supersymmetric index of an effect…
We provide a formula for the partition function of five-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ gauge theories on $\mathcal{M}_4 \times S^1$, topologically twisted along $\mathcal{M}_4$ in the presence of general background magnetic fluxes, where $\mathcal{M}_4$ is a toric Kähler manifold. The result can be expressed as a contour integral of the product of copies of the K-theoretic Nekrasov's partition function, summed over gauge magnetic fluxes. The formula generalizes to five dimensions the topologically twisted index of three- and four-dimensional field theories. We analyze the large $N$ limit of the p…
Without recourse to the sophisticated machinery of twisted group algebras, projective character tables and explicit values of 2-cocycles, we here present a simple algorithm to study the gauge theory data of D-brane probes on a generic orbifold G with discrete torsion turned on. We show in particular that the gauge theory can be obtained with the knowledge of no more than the ordinary character tables of G and its covering group G*. Subsequently we present the quiver diagrams of certain illustrative examples of SU(3)-orbifolds which have non-trivial Schur Multipliers. The paper serves as a comp…
We study half-BPS surface operators in 5d N=1 gauge theories compactified on a circle. Using localization methods and the twisted chiral ring relations of coupled 3d/5d quiver gauge theories, we calculate the twisted chiral superpotential that governs the infrared properties of these surface operators. We make a detailed analysis of the localization integrand, and by comparing with the results from the twisted chiral ring equations obtain constraints on the 3d and 5d Chern-Simons levels so that the instanton partition function does not depend on the choice of integration contour. For these val…
We study the $\mathcal N=2$ field theory realized by D3-branes on the ${\mathbb C}^2/{\mathbb Z}_2$ orbifold. The dual supergravity solution exhibits a repulson singularity cured by the enhancon mechanism. By comparing the open and closed string descriptions of a probe D-instanton, we can compute the exact non-perturbative profile of the supergravity twisted field, which determines the supergravity background. We then show how the non-trivial IR physics of the field theory translates into the stringy effects that give rise to the enhancon mechanism and the associated excision procedure.
We explore the geometric interpretation of the twisted index of 3d ${\mathcal N} =4$ gauge theories on $S^1\times Σ$ where $Σ$ is a closed Riemann surface. We focus on a rich class of supersymmetric quiver gauge theories that have isolated vacua under generic mass and FI parameter deformations. We show that the path integral localises to a moduli space of generalised vortex equations on $Σ$, which can be understood algebraically as quasi-maps to the Higgs branch. We show that the twisted index reproduces the virtual Euler characteristic of the moduli spaces of twisted quasi-maps and demonstrat…
We extend the N=4 superconformal Chern-Simons theories of Gaiotto and Witten to those with additional twisted hyper-multiplets. The new theories are generically linear quiver gauge theories with the two types of hyper-multiplets alternating between gauge groups. Our construction includes the Bagger-Lambert model of SO(4) gauge group. A family of abelian theories are identified with those proposed earlier in the context of the M-crystal model for M2-branes probing (C^2/Z_n)^2 orbifolds. Possible extension with non-abelian BF couplings and string/M-theory realization are briefly discussed.
A 2-torsion topological phase exists for Hamiltonians symmetric under the wallpaper group with glide reflection symmetry, corresponding to the unorientable cycle of the Klein bottle fundamental domain. We prove a mod 2 twisted Toeplitz index theorem, which implies a bulk-edge correspondence between this bulk phase and the exotic topological zero modes that it acquires along a boundary glide axis.
We discuss connections between certain classes of supersymmetric quiver gauge theories and integrable lattice models from the point of view of topological quantum field theories (TQFTs). The relevant classes include 4d $\mathcal{N} = 1$ theories known as brane box and brane tilling models, 3d $\mathcal{N} = 2$ and 2d $\mathcal{N} = (2,2)$ theories obtained from them by compactification, and 2d $\mathcal{N} = (0,2)$ theories closely related to these theories. We argue that their supersymmetric indices carry structures of TQFTs equipped with line operators, and as a consequence, are equal to the…
We calculate the superconformal indices of recently discovered three-dimensional N=4,5 Chern-Simons-matter theories and compare them with the corresponding indices of supergravity on AdS4 times orbifolds of S7. We find perfect agreement in the large N and large k limit, provided that the twisted sector contributions at the fixed loci of the orbifolds are properly taken into account. We also discuss the index for the so-called "dual ABJM" proposal.
We study the prototype of fractional D3 branes at non-isolated singularities in gauge/gravity duality at the nonperturbative level. We embed the quantum moduli space of N=2 SU(M) pure SYM, the gauge theory on fractional D3 branes at the A_1 singularity, into that of the cascading quiver gauge theory on regular and fractional D3 branes at the same singularity, for which a gravity dual description exists. We deduce a simple analytic expression for the exact twisted sector fields in the type IIB string dual, which encodes the full quantum dynamics of the gauge theory. Nonperturbative effects in t…
We study half-BPS surface operators in supersymmetric gauge theories in four and five dimensions following two different approaches. In the first approach we analyze the chiral ring equations for certain quiver theories in two and three dimensions, coupled respectively to four- and five-dimensional gauge theories. The chiral ring equations, which arise from extremizing a twisted chiral superpotential, are solved as power series in the infrared scales of the quiver theories. In the second approach we use equivariant localization and obtain the twisted chiral superpotential as a function of the …
The inflaton necessary to implement the mechanism of inflationary cosmology has natural candidates in quiver gauge theory. We discuss the dimensionless coefficients of quartic couplings and enumerate scalars which are singlet under the low-energy gauge group. The inflaton mass is generally predicted to be in the TeV region, close to 4 TeV for one specific unified model. A quartic inflaton potential, and a mutated hybrid inflation, are discussed. They can give adequate inflation and appropriate fluctuations but different spectral indices.
We study the integral Bailey lemma associated with the $\mathrm{A_n}$-root system and identities for elliptic hypergeometric integrals generated thereby. Interpreting integrals as superconformal indices of four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ quiver gauge theories with the gauge groups being copies of $\mathrm{SU(n+1)}$, we provide evidence for various new dualities. Further confirmation is achieved by explicitly checking that the `t Hooft anomaly matching conditions holds. We discuss a flavour symmetry breaking phenomenon for supersymmetric quantum chromodynamics (SQCD), and by making use of the …
We study 4D N=2 superconformal theories that arise from the compactification of 6D N=(2,0) theories of type A_{2N-1} on a Riemann surface C, in the presence of punctures twisted by a Z_2 outer automorphism. We describe how to do a complete classification of these SCFTs in terms of three-punctured spheres and cylinders, which we do explicitly for A_3, and provide tables of properties of twisted defects up through A_9. We find atypical degenerations of Riemann surfaces that do not lead to weakly-coupled gauge groups, but to a gauge coupling pinned at a point in the interior of moduli space. As a…
