We show how to map Grothendiecks dessins denfants to algebraic curves as Seiberg-Witten curves, then use the mirror map and the AGT map to obtain the corresponding 4d $mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric instanton partition functions and 2d Virasoro conformal blocks. We explicitly demonstrate the 6 trivalent dessins with 4 punctures on the sphere. We find that the parametrizations obtained from a dessin should be related by certain duality for gauge theories. Then we will discuss that some dessins could correspond to conformal blocks satisfying certain rules in different minimal models.
In this paper we apply the idea of Higgs branch localization to 5d supersymmetric theories of vector multiplet and hypermultiplets, obtained as the rigid limit of $mathcal{N} = 1$ supergravity with all auxiliary fields. On supersymmetric K-contact/Sasakian background, the Higgs branch BPS equations can be interpreted as 5d generalizations of the Seiberg-Witten equations. We discuss the properties and local behavior of the solutions near closed Reeb orbits. For $U(1)$ gauge theories, we show the suppression of the deformed Coulomb branch, and the partition function is dominated by 5d Seiberg-Witten solutions at large $zeta$-limit. For squashed $S^5$ and $Y^{pq}$ manifolds, we show the matching between poles in the perturbative Coulomb branch matrix model, and the bound on local winding numbers of the BPS solutions.
We consider N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories perturbed by tree level superpotential terms near isolated singular points in the Coulomb moduli space. We identify the Seiberg-Witten curve at these points with polynomial equations used to construct what Grothendieck called dessins denfants or childrens drawings on the Riemann sphere. From a mathematical point of view, the dessins are important because the absolute Galois group Gal(bar{Q}/Q) acts faithfully on them. We argue that the relation between the dessins and Seiberg-Witten theory is useful because gauge theory criteria used to distinguish branches of N=1 vacua can lead to mathematical invariants that help to distinguish dessins belonging to different Galois orbits. For instance, we show that the confinement index defined in hep-th/0301006 is a Galois invariant. We further make some conjectures on the relation between Grothendiecks programme of classifying dessins into Galois orbits and the physics problem of classifying phases of N=1 gauge theories.
We derive Seiberg-Witten like equations encoding the dynamics of N=2 ADE quiver gauge theories in presence of a non-trivial Omega-background along a two dimensional plane. The epsilon-deformed prepotential and the chiral correlators of the gauge theory are extracted from difference equations that can be thought as a non-commutative (or quantum) version of the Seiberg-Witten curves for the quiver.
The goal of this note is to show that the Riemann-Hilbert problem to find multivalued analytic functions with $SL(2,mathbb{C})$-valued monodromy on Riemann surfaces of genus zero with $n$ punctures can be solved by taking suitable linear combinations of the conformal blocks of Liouville theory at $c=1$. This implies a similar representation for the isomonodromic tau-function. In the case $n=4$ we thereby get a proof of the relation between tau-functions and conformal blocks discovered in cite{GIL}. We briefly discuss a possible application of our results to the study of relations between certain $mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric gauge theories and conformal field theory.
We consider 5-point functions in conformal field theories in d > 2 dimensions. Using weight-shifting operators, we derive recursion relations which allow for the computation of arbitrary conformal blocks appearing in 5-point functions of scalar operators, reducing them to a linear combination of blocks with scalars exchanged. We additionally derive recursion relations for the conformal blocks which appear when one of the external operators in the 5-point function has spin 1 or 2. Our results allow us to formulate positivity constraints using 5-point functions which describe the expectation value of the energy operator in bilocal states created by two scalars.