Line defects and 5d instanton partition functions

We consider certain line defect operators in five-dimensional SUSY gauge theories, whose interaction with the self-dual instantons is described by 1d ADHM-like gauged quantum mechanics constructed by Tong and Wong. The partition function in the presence of these operators is known to be a generating function of BPS Wilson loops in skew symmetric tensor representations of the gauge group. We calculate the partition function and explicitly prove that it is a finite polynomial of the defect mass parameter $x$, which is an essential property of the defect operator and the Wilson loop generating function. The relation between the line defect partition function and the qq-character defined by N. Nekrasov is briefly discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure; typos fixed, references corrected; version to be published in JHE

Line defects and 5d instanton partition functions

We consider certain line defect operators in five-dimensional SUSY gauge theories, whose interaction with the self-dual instantons is described by 1d ADHM-like gauged quantum mechanics constructed by Tong and Wong. The partition function in the presence of these operators is known to be a generating function of BPS Wilson loops in skew symmetric tensor representations of the gauge group. We calculate the partition function and explicitly prove that it is a finite polynomial of the defect mass parameter x, which is an essential property of the defect operator and the Wilson loop generating function. The relation between the line defect partition function and the qq-character defined by N . Nekrasov is briefly discussed.1112Nsciescopu

Topological strings and 5d T_N partition functions

We evaluate the Nekrasov partition function of 5d gauge theories engineered by webs of 5-branes, using the refined topological vertex on the dual Calabi-Yau threefolds. The theories include certain non-Lagrangian theories such as the T_N theory. The refined topological vertex computation generically contains contributions from decoupled M2-branes which are not charged under the 5d gauge symmetry engineered. We argue that, after eliminating them, the refined topological string partition function agrees with the 5d Nekrasov partition function. We explicitly check this for the T_3 theory as well as Sp(1) gauge theories with N_f = 2, 3, 4 flavors. In particular, our method leads to a new expression of the Sp(1) Nekrasov partition functions without any contour integrals. We also develop prescriptions to calculate the partition functions of theories obtained by Higgsing the T_N theory. We compute the partition function of the E_7 theory via this prescription, and find the E_7 global symmetry enhancement. We finally discuss a potential application of the refined topological vertex to non-toric web diagrams.Comment: 79 pages, 27 figures; v2: minor improvements, references adde

Supersymmetric vacua of mass-deformed M2-brane theory

We count the supersymmetric vacua of mass-deformed N=6 U(N)xU(N) Chern-Simons-matter theory by calculating the Witten index. When the Chern-Simons level k is 1, our result perfectly agrees with that from the gravity dual, given by partitions of N. For general k, our index generalizes partitions of N, including additional degrees. We also comment on non-relativistic superconformal theories constructed from this model.1130sciescopu

Towards Classification of 5d SCFTs: Single Gauge Node

We propose a number of apparently equivalent criteria necessary for the consistency of a 5d SCFT in its Coulomb phase and use these criteria to classify 5d SCFTs arising from a gauge theory with simple gauge group. These criteria include the convergence of the 5-sphere partition function; the positivity of particle masses and monopole string tensions; and the positive definiteness of the metric in some region in the Coulomb branch. We find that for large rank classical groups simple classes of SCFTs emerge where the bounds on the matter content and the Chern-Simons level grow linearly with rank. For classical groups of rank less than or equal to 8, our classification leads to additional cases which do not fit in the large rank analysis. We also classify the allowed matter content for all exceptional groups.Comment: 52 pages + appendix, 11 tables, 12 figure