No Arabic abstract
We compute the ${cal N}=2$ supersymmetric partition function of a gauge theory on a four-dimensional compact toric manifold via equivariant localization. The result is given by a piecewise constant function of the Kahler form with jumps along the walls where the gauge symmetry gets enhanced. The partition function on such manifolds is written as a sum over the residues of a product of partition functions on $mathbb{C}^2$. The evaluation of these residues is greatly simplified by using an abstruse duality that relates the residues at the poles of the one-loop and instanton parts of the $mathbb{C}^2$ partition function. As particular cases, our formulae compute the $SU(2)$ and $SU(3)$ {it equivariant} Donaldson invariants of $mathbb{P}^2$ and $mathbb{F}_n$ and in the non-equivariant limit reproduce the results obtained via wall-crossing and blow up methods in the $SU(2)$ case. Finally, we show that the $U(1)$ self-dual connections induce an anomalous dependence on the gauge coupling, which turns out to satisfy a $mathcal{N}=2$ analog of the $mathcal{N}=4$ holomorphic anomaly equations.
In this article, we extend the work of arXiv:0901.4744 to a Bethe/Gauge correspondence between 2d (or resp. 3d) SO/Sp gauge theories and open XXX (resp. XXZ) spin chains with diagonal boundary conditions. The case of linear quiver gauge theories is also considered.
The topological vertex formalism for 5d $mathcal{N}=1$ gauge theories is not only a convenient tool to compute the instanton partition function of these theories, but it is also accompanied by a nice algebraic structure that reveals various kinds of nice properties such as dualities and integrability of the underlying theories. The usual refined topological vertex formalism is derived for gauge theories with $A$-type quiver structure (and $A$-type gauge groups). In this article, we propose a construction with a web of vertex operators for all $ABCDEFG$-type and affine quivers by introducing several new vertices into the formalism, based on the reproducing of known instanton partition functions and qq-characters for these theories.
We study gravity duals to a broad class of N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories defined on a general class of three-manifold geometries. The gravity backgrounds are based on Euclidean self-dual solutions to four-dimensional gauged supergravity. As well as constructing new examples, we prove in general that for solutions defined on the four-ball the gravitational free energy depends only on the supersymmetric Killing vector, finding a simple closed formula when the solution has U(1) x U(1) symmetry. Our result agrees with the large N limit of the free energy of the dual gauge theory, computed using localization. This constitutes an exact check of the gauge/gravity correspondence for a very broad class of gauge theories with a large N limit, defined on a general class of background three-manifold geometries.
We study the Gribov problem in four-dimensional topological Yang-Mills theories following the Baulieu-Singer approach in the (anti-)self-dual Landau gauges. This is a gauge-fixed approach that allows to recover the topological spectrum, as first constructed by Witten, by means of an equivariant (or constrained) BRST cohomology. As standard gauge-fixed Yang-Mills theories suffer from the gauge copy (Gribov) ambiguity, one might wonder if and how this has repercussions for this analysis. The resolution of the small (infinitesimal) gauge copies, in general, affects the dynamics of the underlying theory. In particular, treating the Gribov problem for the standard Landau gauge condition in non-topological Yang-Mills theories strongly affects the dynamics of the theory in the infrared. In the current paper, although the theory is investigated with the same gauge condition, the effects of the copies turn out to be completely different. In other words: in both cases, the copies are there, but the effects are very different. As suggested by the tree-level exactness of the topological model in this gauge choice, the Gribov copies are shown to be inoffensive at the quantum level. To be more precise, following Gribov, we discuss the path integral restriction to the Gribov horizon. The associated gap equation, which fixes the so-called Gribov parameter, is however shown to only possess a trivial solution, making the restriction obsolete. We relate this to the absence of radiative corrections in both gauge and ghost sectors. We give further evidence by employing the renormalization group which shows that, for this kind of topological model, the gap equation indeed forbids the introduction of a massive Gribov parameter.
We discuss the modular anomaly equation satisfied by the the prepotential of 4-dimensional N=2* theories and show that its validity is related to S-duality. The recursion relations that follow from the modular anomaly equation allow one to write the prepotential in terms of (quasi)-modular forms, thus resumming the instanton contributions. These results can be checked against the microscopic multi-instanton calculus in the case of classical algebras, but are valid also for the exceptional E6, E7, E8, F4 and G2 algebras, where direct computations are not available.