No Arabic abstract
We study the stability and spectrum of BPS states in ${cal N}=2$ supergravity. We find evidence, and prove for a large class of cases, that BPS stability exhibits a certain filtration which is partially independent of the value of the gauge couplings. Specifically, for any perturbative value of any gauge coupling $g ll 1$, a BPS state can only decay to some constituents if those constituents do not become infinitely heavier than it in the vanishing coupling limit $g rightarrow 0$. This stability filtration can be mathematically formulated in terms of the monodromy weight filtration of the limiting mixed Hodge structure associated to the vanishing coupling limit. We study various implications of the result for the Swampland program which aims to understand such weak-coupling limits, specifically regarding the nature and presence of an infinite tower of light charged BPS states.
Motivated by the Weak Gravity Conjecture, we uncover an intricate interplay between black holes, BPS particle counting, and Calabi-Yau geometry in five dimensions. In particular, we point out that extremal BPS black holes exist only in certain directions in the charge lattice, and we argue that these directions fill out a cone that is dual to the cone of effective divisors of the Calabi-Yau threefold. The tower and sublatti
We provide a semiclassical description of framed BPS states in four-dimensional N = 2 super Yang-Mills theories probed by t Hooft defects, in terms of a supersymmetric quantum mechanics on the moduli space of singular monopoles. Framed BPS states, like their ordinary counterparts in the theory without defects, are associated with the L^2 kernel of certain Dirac operators on moduli space, or equivalently with the L^2 cohomology of related Dolbeault operators. The Dirac/Dolbeault operators depend on two Cartan-valued Higgs vevs. We conjecture a map between these vevs and the Seiberg-Witten special coordinates, consistent with a one-loop analysis and checked in examples. The map incorporates all perturbative and nonperturbative corrections that are relevant for the semiclassical construction of BPS states, over a suitably defined weak coupling regime of the Coulomb branch. We use this map to translate wall crossing formulae and the no-exotics theorem to statements about the Dirac/Dolbeault operators. The no-exotics theorem, concerning the absence of nontrivial SU(2)_R representations in the BPS spectrum, implies that the kernel of the Dirac operator is chiral, and further translates into a statement that all L^2 cohomology of the Dolbeault operator is concentrated in the middle degree. Wall crossing formulae lead to detailed predictions for where the Dirac operators fail to be Fredholm and how their kernels jump. We explore these predictions in nontrivial examples. This paper explains the background and arguments behind the results announced in a short accompanying note.
BPS quivers for N=2 SU(N) gauge theories are derived via geometric engineering from derived categories of toric Calabi-Yau threefolds. While the outcome is in agreement of previous low energy constructions, the geometric approach leads to several new results. An absence of walls conjecture is formulated for all values of N, relating the field theory BPS spectrum to large radius D-brane bound states. Supporting evidence is presented as explicit computations of BPS degeneracies in some examples. These computations also prove the existence of BPS states of arbitrarily high spin and infinitely many marginal stability walls at weak coupling. Moreover, framed quiver models for framed BPS states are naturally derived from this formalism, as well as a mathematical formulation of framed and unframed BPS degeneracies in terms of motivic and cohomological Donaldson-Thomas invariants. We verify the conjectured absence of BPS states with exotic SU(2)_R quantum numbers using motivic DT invariants. This application is based in particular on a complete recursive algorithm which determine the unframed BPS spectrum at any point on the Coulomb branch in terms of noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas invariants for framed quiver representations.
Starting with a very pedestrian point of view we compare two different at the first glance definitions for an algebra associated to BPS states in supersymmetric fields theories. One proposed by Harvey and Moore exploits $S$-matrices of BPS states as structure constants of a new algebra. Another one proposed by Kontsevich and Soibelman gives a construction according to the structure of cohomological Hall algebras. We show these two constructions give equivalent algebras.
In $mathcal{N}=4$ SYM with $U(N)$ gauge symmetry, the multiplicity of half-BPS states with fixed dimension can be labelled by Young diagrams and can be distinguished using conserved charges corresponding to Casimirs of $U(N)$. The information theoretic study of LLM geometries and superstars in the dual $AdS_5 times S^5$ background has raised a number of questions about the distinguishability of Young diagrams when a finite set of Casimirs are known. Using Schur-Weyl duality relations between unitary groups and symmetric groups, these questions translate into structural questions about the centres of symmetric group algebras. We obtain analytic and computational results about these structural properties and related Shannon entropies, and generate associated number sequences. A characterization of Young diagrams in terms of content distribution functions relates these number sequences to diophantine equations. These content distribution functions can be visualized as connected, segmented, open strings in content space.