Relativistic Self-Dual Chern-Simons Systems: A Perspective

The self-dual systems are constrained and so are simpler to understand. In recent years there have been several studies on the self-dual Chern-Simons systems. Here I present a brief survey of works done by my collaborators and myself. I also discuss several questions related to these self-dual models.Comment: LaTex, 9 pages, presented in the Low Dimensional Field Theory Workshop at Telluride (August 1996

Nahm Data and the Mass of 1/4-BPS States

The mass of 1/4-BPS dyonic configurations in N=4 D=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories is calculated within the Nahm formulation. The SU(3) example, with two massive monopoles and one massless monopole, is considered in detail. In this case, the massless monopole is attracted to the massive monopoles by a linear potential.Comment: 23 pages, 2 Postscript figures, v2 references added and typos correcte

Little strings on DnD_n orbifolds

We explore two classes of 6d $\mathcal{N}=(1,0)$ little string theories obtained from type IIA/IIB NS5-branes probing $D_n$ singularities. Their tensor branches are described by effective gauge theories whose instanton solitons are macroscopic little strings. We specifically study two families of 2d $\mathcal{N}=(0,4)$ gauge theories which describe at low energy the worldsheet dynamics of the type IIA/IIB little strings. These gauge theories are useful to calculate the supersymmetric partition functions of the little string theories on $\mathbf{R}^4 \times T^2$. We establish the T-duality of the little string theories by utilizing their BPS spectra as a probe.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures; v2: minor changes, published versio