ABJM Wilson loops in the Fermi gas approach

The matrix model of ABJM theory can be formulated in terms of a Fermi gas in an external potential. We show that, in this formalism, vevs of Wilson loops correspond to averages of operators in the statistical-mechanical problem. This makes it possible to calculate these vevs at all orders in 1/N, up to exponentially small corrections, and for arbitrary Chern-Simons coupling, by using the WKB expansion. We present explicit results for the vevs of 1/6 and the 1/2 BPS Wilson loops, at any winding number, in terms of Airy functions. Our expressions are shown to reproduce the low genus results obtained previously in the 't Hooft expansion.Comment: 48 pages, 2 figures, expansion (2.110) and typos corrected, slight improvements of the presentatio

Landscaping with fluxes and the E8 Yukawa Point in F-theory

Integrality in the Hodge theory of Calabi-Yau fourfolds is essential to find the vacuum structure and the anomaly cancellation mechanism of four dimensional F-theory compactifications. We use the Griffiths-Frobenius geometry and homological mirror symmetry to fix the integral monodromy basis in the primitive horizontal subspace of Calabi-Yau fourfolds. The Gamma class and supersymmetric localization calculations in the 2d gauged linear sigma model on the hemisphere are used to check and extend this method. The result allows us to study the superpotential and the Weil-Petersson metric and an associated tt* structure over the full complex moduli space of compact fourfolds for the first time. We show that integral fluxes can drive the theory to N=1 supersymmetric vacua at orbifold points and argue that fluxes can be chosen that fix the complex moduli of F-theory compactifications at gauge enhancements including such with U(1) factors. Given the mechanism it is natural to start with the most generic complex structure families of elliptic Calabi-Yau 4-fold fibrations over a given base. We classify these families in toric ambient spaces and among them the ones with heterotic duals. The method also applies to the creating of matter and Yukawa structures in F-theory. We construct two SU(5) models in F-theory with a Yukawa point that have a point on the base with an $E_8$-type singularity on the fiber and explore their embeddings in the global models. The explicit resolution of the singularity introduce a higher dimensional fiber and leads to novel features.Comment: 150 page