No Arabic abstract
We relate the non-perturbative exact results in supersymmetry to perturbation theory using several different methods: instanton calculations at weak or strong coupling, a method using gaugino condensation and another method relating strong and weak coupling. This allows many precise numerical checks of the consistency of these methods, especially the amplitude of instanton effects, and of the network of exact solutions in supersymmetry. However, there remain difficulties with the instanton computations at strong coupling.
We derive exact formulae for the partition function and the expectation values of Wilson/t Hooft loops, thus directly checking their S-duality transformations. We focus on a special class of N=2 gauge theories on S^4 with fundamental matter. In particular we show that, for a specific choice of the masses, the matrix model integral defining the gauge theory partition function localizes around a finite set of critical points where it can be explicitly evaluated and written in terms of generalized hypergeometric functions. From the AGT perspective the gauge theory partition function, evaluated with this choice of masses, is viewed as a four point correlator involving the insertion of a degenerated field. The well known simplicity of the degenerated correlator reflects the fact that for these choices of masses only a very restrictive type of instanton configurations contributes to the gauge theory partition function.
We propose a new set of s-confining theories with product gauge groups and no tree-level superpotential, based on a model with one antisymmetric matter field and four flavors of quarks. For each product group we find a set of gauge-invariant operators which satisfy the t Hooft anomaly matching conditions, and we identify the dynamically generated superpotential which reproduces the classical constraints between operators. Several of these product gauge theories confine without breaking chiral symmetry, even in cases where the classical moduli space is quantum-modified. These results may be useful for composite model building, particularly in cases where small meson operators are absent, or for theories with multiple natural energy scales, and may provide new ways to break supersymmetry dynamically.
At large N, a field theory and its orbifolds (given by projecting out some of its fields) share the same planar graphs. If the parent-orbifold relation continues even nonperturbatively, then properties such as confinement and chiral symmetry breaking will appear in both parent and orbifold. N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills has many nonsupersymmetric orbifolds which resemble QCD. A nonperturbative parent-orbifold relation predicts many surprising effects, exactly valid at large N, and expected to suffer only mild 1/N corrections. These include degeneracies among bosonic hadrons and exact predictions for domain wall tensions. Other predictions are valid even when supersymmetry in the parent is broken. Since these theories are QCD-like, simulation is possible, so these predictions may be numerically tested. The method also relates wide classes of nonsupersymmetric theories.
I propose a controlled approximation to QCD-like theories with massless quarks by employing supersymmetric QCD perturbed by anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking. They have identical massless particle contents. Thanks to the ultraviolet-insensitivity of anomaly mediation, dynamics can be worked out exactly when $m ll Lambda$, where $m$ is the size of supersymmetry breaking and $Lambda$ the dynamical scale of the gauge theory. I demonstrate that chiral symmetry is dynamically broken for $N_{f} leq frac{3}{2} N_{c}$ while the theories lead to non-trivial infrared fixed points for larger number of flavors. While there may be a phase transition as $m$ is increased beyond $Lambda$, qualitative agreements with expectations in QCD are encouraging and suggest that two limits $m ll Lambda$ and $m gg Lambda$ may be in the same universality class.
Recently a non-perturbative formula for the RG flow between UV and IR fixed points of the coefficient in the trace of the energy momentum tensor of the Euler density has been obtained for N=1 SUSY gauge theories by relating the trace and R-current anomalies. This result is compared here with an earlier perturbation theory analysis based on a naturally defined metric on the space of couplings for general renormalisable quantum field theories. This approach is specialised to N=1 supersymmetric theories and extended, using consistency arguments, to obtain the Euler coefficient at fixed points to 4-loops. The result agrees completely, to this order, with the exact formula.