No Arabic abstract
Following recent work on GLSM localization, we work out curvature couplings for rigidly supersymmetric nonlinear sigma models with superpotential for general target spaces, describing both ordinary and twisted chiral superfields on round two-sphere worldsheets. We briefly discuss why, unlike four-dimensional theories, there are no constraints on Kahler forms in these theories. We also briefly discuss general issues in topological twists of such theories.
We carry out a systematic study of 4d $mathcal{N} = 2$ preserving S-folds of F-theory 7-branes and the worldvolume theories on D3-branes probing them. They consist of two infinite series of theories, which we denote following the original papers by $mathcal{S}^{(r)}_{G,ell}$ for $ell = 2,3,4$ and $mathcal{T}^{(r)}_{G,ell}$ for $ell = 2,3,4,5,6$. Their distinction lies in the discrete torsion carried by the S-fold and in the difference in the asymptotic holonomy of the gauge bundle on the 7-brane. We study various properties of these theories, using diverse field theoretical and string theoretical methods.
We propose a generalization of S-folds to 4d $mathcal{N}=2$ theories. This construction is motivated by the classification of rank one 4d $mathcal{N}=2$ super-conformal field theories (SCFTs), which we reproduce from D3-branes probing a configuration of $mathcal{N}=2$ S-folds combined with 7-branes. The main advantage of this point of view is that realizes both Coulomb and Higgs branch flows and allows for a straight forward generalization to higher rank theories.
S-folds are a non-perturbative generalization of orientifold 3-planes which figure prominently in the construction of 4D $mathcal{N} = 3$ SCFTs and have also recently been used to realize examples of 4D $mathcal{N} = 2$ SCFTs. In this paper we develop a general procedure for reading off the flavor symmetry experienced by D3-branes probing 7-branes in the presence of an S-fold. We develop an S-fold generalization of orientifold projection which applies to non-perturbative string junctions. This procedure leads to a different 4D flavor symmetry algebra depending on whether the S-fold supports discrete torsion. We also show that this same procedure allows us to read off admissible representations of the flavor symmetry in the associated 4D $mathcal{N} = 2$ SCFTs. Furthermore this provides a prescription for how to define F-theory in the presence of S-folds with discrete torsion.
We study vacua and walls of mass-deformed Kahler nonlinear sigma models on $Sp(N)/U(N)$. We identify elementary walls with the simple roots of $USp(2N)$ and discuss compressed walls, penetrable walls and multiwalls by using the moduli matrix formalism.
We holomorphically embed nonlinear sigma models (NLSMs) on $SO(2N)/U(N)$ and $Sp(N)/U(N)$ in the hyper-K{a}hler (HK) NLSM on the cotangent bundle of the Grassmann manifold $T^ast G_{2N,N}$, which is defined by $G_{N+M,M}=frac{SU(N+M)}{SU(N)times SU(M)times U(1)}$, in the ${mathcal{N}}=1$ superspace formalism and construct three-pronged junctions of the mass-deformed NLSMs (mNLSMs) in the moduli matrix formalism (MMF) by using a recently proposed method.