34 pages; AMS-Latex. v2: Several minor changes. Based on lectures delivered at the 2005 Summer school on ``Geometric and Topological Methods for Quantum Field Theory'', July 11-29 2005, Villa de Leyva, Colombia
These notes aim at a pedagogical introduction to recent work on deformation of spaces and deformation of vector bundles over them, which are relevant both in mathematics and in physics, notably monopole and instanton bundles.
We first decribe toric noncommutative manifolds (also known as isospectral deformations) and give a detailed introduction to gauge theories on a toric four-sphere. This includes a Yang-Mills action functional with associated equations of motion and self-duality equations. We construct a particular class of instanton solutions on a SU(2) bundle with a suitable use of twisted conformal symmetries.
In the second part, we describe a different deformation of an instanton bundle over the classical four-sphere by constructing a quantum group SU_q(2) bundle on a sphere which is different from the toric one.
Using the theory of noncommutative geometry in a braided monoidal category, we improve upon a previous construction of noncommutative families of instantons of arbitrary charge on the deformed sphere S^4_θ. We formulate a notion of noncommutative parameter spaces for families of instantons and we explore what it means for such families to be gauge equivalent, as well as showing how to remove gauge parameters using a noncommutative quotient construction. Although the parameter spaces are a priori noncommutative, we show that one may always recover a classical parameter space by making an approp…
We present an account of the ADHM construction of instantons on Euclidean space-time $\mathbb{R}^4$ from the point of view of noncommutative geometry. We recall the main ingredients of the classical construction in a coordinate algebra format, which we then deform using a cocycle twisting procedure to obtain a method for constructing families of instantons on noncommutative space-time, parameterised by solutions to an appropriate set of ADHM equations. We illustrate the noncommutative construction in two special cases: the Moyal-Groenewold plane $\mathbb{R}^4_\hbar$ and the Connes-Landi plane …
We give a θ-deformed version of the ADHM construction of SU(2) instantons with arbitrary topological charge on the sphere S^4. Classically the instanton gauge fields are constructed from suitable monad data; we show that in the deformed case the set of monads is itself a noncommutative space. We use these monads to construct noncommutative `families' of SU(2) instantons on the deformed sphere S^4_θ. We also compute the topological charge of each of the families. Finally we discuss what it means for such families to be gauge equivalent.
We study analytic aspects of U(n) gauge theory over a toric noncommutative manifold $M_θ$. We analyse moduli spaces of solutions to the self-dual Yang-Mills equations on U(2) vector bundles over four-manifolds $M_θ$, showing that each such moduli space is either empty or a smooth Hausdorff manifold whose dimension we explicitly compute. In the special case of the four-sphere $S^4_θ$ we find that the moduli space of U(2) instantons with fixed second Chern number $k$ is a smooth manifold of dimension $8k-3$.
Through techniques afforded by $C^*$-algebras and Hilbert modules, we study the topology of spaces which parametrize families of instanton gauge fields on noncommutative Euclidean four-spheres $S^4_σ$. By deforming the ADHM construction of instantons on the classical sphere $S^4$, we obtain families of instantons on the quantum sphere which are naturally parametrized by noncommutative topological spaces. Using the internal gauge theory of $S^4_σ$ determined by the inner automorphisms of its function algebra, we find that one may always recover a classical parameter space by making a suitable c…
We elaborate on the quantization of toric varieties by combining techniques from toric geometry, isospectral deformations and noncommutative geometry in braided monoidal categories, and the construction of instantons thereon by combining methods from noncommutative algebraic geometry and a quantised twistor theory. We classify the real structures on a toric noncommutative deformation of the Klein quadric and use this to derive a new noncommutative four-sphere which is the unique deformation compatible with the noncommutative twistor correspondence. We extend the computation of equivariant inst…
We continue our study of the noncommutative algebraic and differential geometry of a particular class of deformations of toric varieties, focusing on aspects pertinent to the construction and enumeration of noncommutative instantons on these varieties. We develop a noncommutative version of twistor theory, which introduces a new example of a noncommutative four-sphere. We develop a braided version of the ADHM construction and show that it parametrizes a certain moduli space of framed torsion free sheaves on a noncommutative projective plane. We use these constructions to explicitly build insta…
We describe the statistical mechanics of a melting crystal in three dimensions and its relation to a diverse range of models arising in combinatorics, algebraic geometry, integrable systems, low-dimensional gauge theories, topological string theory and quantum gravity. Its partition function can be computed by enumerating the contributions from noncommutative instantons to a six-dimensional cohomological gauge theory, which yields a dynamical realization of the crystal as a discretization of spacetime at the Planck scale. We describe analogous relations between a melting crystal model in two d…
Noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas invariants for abelian orbifold singularities can be studied via the enumeration of instanton solutions in a six-dimensional noncommutative N=2 gauge theory; this construction is based on the generalized McKay correspondence and identifies the instanton counting with the counting of framed representations of a quiver which is naturally associated to the geometry of the singularity. We extend these constructions to compute BPS partition functions for higher-rank refined and motivic noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas invariants in the Coulomb branch in terms of gauge…
We construct explicit deformation quantizations of the noncompact complex surfaces $Z_k := \operatorname{Tot} (\mathcal O_{\mathbb P^1} (-k))$ and describe their effect on moduli spaces of vector bundles and instanton moduli spaces. We introduce the concept of rebel instantons, as being those which react badly to some quantizations, misbehaving by shooting off extra families of noncommutative instantons. We then show that the quantum instanton moduli space can be viewed as the étale space of a constructible sheaf over the classical instanton moduli space with support on rebel instantons.
We investigate a quantum twistor bundle constructed as a $U(1)$-quotient of the quantum instanton bundle of Bonechi, Ciccoli and Tarlini. It is an example of a noncommutative bundle fulfilling conditions of the purely algebraic framework proposed by Brzeziński and Szymański. We provide a detailed description of the corresponding $C^*$-algebra of `continuous functions' on its noncommutative total space.
We survey some of the AGT relations between N=2 gauge theories in four dimensions and geometric representations of symmetry algebras of two-dimensional conformal field theory on the equivariant cohomology of their instanton moduli spaces. We treat the cases of gauge theories on both flat space and ALE spaces in some detail, and with emphasis on the implications arising from embedding them into supersymmetric theories in six dimensions. Along the way we construct new toric noncommutative ALE spaces using the general theory of complex algebraic deformations of toric varieties, and indicate how t…
We investigate the quantum twistor bundle constructed as a $U(1)$-quotient of the quantum instanton bundle of Bonechi, Ciccoli and Tarlini. It is an example of a locally trivial noncommutative bundle fulfilling conditions of the framework recently proposed by Brzeziński and Szymański. In particular, we give a detailed description of the corresponding $C^*$-algebra of 'continuous functions' on its noncommutative total space. Furthermore, we analyse a different construction of a quantum instanton bundle due to Landi, Pagani and Reina, find a basis of its polynomial algebra and discover an intrig…
We construct and study noncommutative deformations of toric varieties by combining techniques from toric geometry, isospectral deformations, and noncommutative geometry in braided monoidal categories. Our approach utilizes the same fan structure of the variety but deforms the underlying embedded algebraic torus. We develop a sheaf theory using techniques from noncommutative algebraic geometry. The cases of projective varieties are studied in detail, and several explicit examples are worked out, including new noncommutative deformations of Grassmann and flag varieties. Our constructions set up …
The quantum flag manifold ${SU_q(3)/\mathbb{T}^2}$ is interpreted as a noncommutative bundle over the quantum complex projective plane with the quantum or Podleś sphere as a fibre. A connection arising from the (associated) quantum principal $U_q(2)$-bundle is described.
The representations of some Hopf algebras have curious behavior: Nonprojective modules may have projective tensor powers, and the variety of a tensor product of modules may not be contained in the intersection of their varieties. We explain a family of examples of such Hopf algebras and their modules, and classify left, right, and two-sided ideals in their stable module categories.
