3d dualities from 4d dualities

Many examples of low-energy dualities have been found in supersymmetric gauge theories with four supercharges, both in four and in three space-time dimensions. In these dualities, two theories that are different at high energies have the same low-energy limit. In this paper we clarify the relation between the dualities in four and in three dimensions. We show that every four dimensional duality gives rise to a three dimensional duality between theories that are similar, but not identical, to the dimensional reductions of the four dimensional dual gauge theories to three dimensions. From these specific three dimensional dualities one can flow to many other low-energy dualities, including known three dimensional dualities and many new ones. We discuss in detail the case of three dimensional SU(N_c) supersymmetric QCD theories, showing how to derive new duals for these theories from the four dimensional duality.Comment: 84 pages, 3 figures, harvmac. v2: added an appendix on the reduction of the 4d index to the 3d partition function, added references, minor corrections and change

Chiral expansion and Macdonald deformation of two-dimensional Yang-Mills theory

We derive the analog of the large $N$ Gross-Taylor holomorphic string expansion for the refinement of $q$-deformed $U(N)$ Yang-Mills theory on a compact oriented Riemann surface. The derivation combines Schur-Weyl duality for quantum groups with the Etingof-Kirillov theory of generalized quantum characters which are related to Macdonald polynomials. In the unrefined limit we reproduce the chiral expansion of $q$-deformed Yang-Mills theory derived by de Haro, Ramgoolam and Torrielli. In the classical limit $q=1$, the expansion defines a new $\beta$-deformation of Hurwitz theory wherein the refined partition function is a generating function for certain parameterized Euler characters, which reduce in the unrefined limit $\beta=1$ to the orbifold Euler characteristics of Hurwitz spaces of holomorphic maps. We discuss the geometrical meaning of our expansions in relation to quantum spectral curves and $\beta$-ensembles of matrix models arising in refined topological string theory.Comment: 45 pages; v2: References adde

Fundamental Vortices, Wall-Crossing, and Particle-Vortex Duality

We explore 1d vortex dynamics of 3d supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories, as inferred from factorization of exact partition functions. Under Seiberg-like dualities, the 3d partition function must remain invariant, yet it is not a priori clear what should happen to the vortex dynamics. We observe that the 1d quivers for the vortices remain the same, and the net effect of the 3d duality map manifests as 1d Wall-Crossing phenomenon; Although the vortex number can shift along such duality maps, the ranks of the 1d quiver theory are unaffected, leading to a notion of fundamental vortices as basic building blocks for topological sectors. For Aharony-type duality, in particular, where one must supply extra chiral fields to couple with monopole operators on the dual side, 1d wall-crossings of an infinite number of vortex quiver theories are neatly and collectively encoded by 3d determinant of such extra chiral fields. As such, 1d wall-crossing of the vortex theory encodes the particle-vortex duality embedded in the 3d Seiberg-like duality. For $\mathcal N = 4$, the D-brane picture is used to motivate this 3d/1d connection, while, for $\mathcal N = 2$, this 3d/1d connection is used to fine-tune otherwise ambiguous vortex dynamics. We also prove some identities of 3d supersymmetric partition functions for the Aharony duality using this vortex wall-crossing interpretation.Comment: 75 pages, 24 figures; v2: a reference added, published versio

Guiding-center Hall viscosity and intrinsic dipole moment along edges of incompressible fractional quantum Hall fluids

The discontinuity of guiding-center Hall viscosity (a bulk property) at edges of incompressible quantum Hall fluids is associated with the presence of an intrinsic electric dipole moment on the edge. If there is a gradient of drift velocity due to a non-uniform electric field, the discontinuity in the induced stress is exactly balanced by the electric force on the dipole. The total Hall viscosity has two distinct contributions: a "trivial" contribution associated with the geometry of the Landau orbits, and a non-trivial contribution associated with guiding-center correlations. We describe a relation between the guiding-center edge-dipole moment and "momentum polarization", which relates the guiding-center part of the bulk Hall viscosity to the "orbital entanglement spectrum(OES)". We observe that using the computationally-more-onerous "real-space entanglement spectrum (RES)" just adds the trivial Landau-orbit contribution to the guiding-center part. This shows that all the non-trivial information is completely contained in the OES, which also exposes a fundamental topological quantity $\gamma$ = $\tilde c-\nu$, the difference between the "chiral stress-energy anomaly" (or signed conformal anomaly) and the chiral charge anomaly. This quantity characterizes correlated fractional quantum Hall fluids, and vanishes in uncorrelated integer quantum Hall fluids