Exactly Marginal Deformations of N=4 SYM and of its Supersymmetric Orbifold Descendants

In this paper we study exactly marginal deformations of field theories living on D3-branes at low energies. These theories include N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and theories obtained from it via the orbifolding procedure. We restrict ourselves only to orbifolds and deformations which leave some supersymmetry unbroken. A number of new families of N=1 superconformal field theories are found. We analyze the deformations perturbatively, and also by using general arguments for the dimension of the space of exactly marginal deformations. We find some cases where the space of perturbative exactly marginal deformations is smaller than the prediction of the general analysis at least up to three-loop order), and other cases where the perturbative result (at low orders) has a non-generic form.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure. v2: added preprint number, references adde

Diagrams for Symmetric Product Orbifolds

We develop a diagrammatic language for symmetric product orbifolds of two-dimensional conformal field theories. Correlation functions of twist operators are written as sums of diagrams: each diagram corresponds to a branched covering map from a surface where the fields are single-valued to the base sphere where twist operators are inserted. This diagrammatic language facilitates the study of the large N limit and makes more transparent the analogy between symmetric product orbifolds and free non-abelian gauge theories. We give a general algorithm to calculate the leading large N contribution to four-point correlators of twist fields.Comment: 43 pages, 19 figures, v2: references adde

BMN Operators for N=1 Superconformal Yang-Mills Theories and Associated String Backgrounds

We study a class of near-BPS operators for a complex 2-parameter family of N=1 superconformal Yang-Mills theories that can be obtained by a Leigh-Strassler deformation of N=4 SYM theory. We identify these operators in the large N and large R-charge limit and compute their exact scaling dimensions using N=1 superspace methods. From these scaling dimensions we attempt to reverse-engineer the light-cone worldsheet theory that describes string propagation on the Penrose limit of the dual geometry.Comment: 47 pages, 1 figure, 1 table; v2 a few typos corrected; v3 added acknowledgements, a reference and improved discussion in section

On the perturbative chiral ring for marginally deformed N=4 SYM theories

For \cal{N}=1 SU(N) SYM theories obtained as marginal deformations of the \cal{N}=4 parent theory we study perturbatively some sectors of the chiral ring in the weak coupling regime and for finite N. By exploiting the relation between the definition of chiral ring and the effective superpotential we develop a procedure which allows us to easily determine protected chiral operators up to n loops once the superpotential has been computed up to (n-1) order. In particular, for the Lunin-Maldacena beta-deformed theory we determine the quantum structure of a large class of operators up to three loops. We extend our procedure to more general Leigh-Strassler deformations whose chiral ring is not fully understood yet and determine the weight-two and weight-three sectors up to two loops. We use our results to infer general properties of the chiral ring.Comment: LaTex, 40 pages, 4 figures, uses JHEP3; v2: minor correction

q-Virasoro Modular Double and 3d Partition Functions

We study partition functions of 3d gauge theories on compact manifolds which are S (1) fibrations over S-2. We show that the partition functions are free field correlators of vertex operators and screening charges of the q-Virasoro modular double, which we define. The inclusion of supersymmetric Wilson loops in arbitrary representations allows us to show that the generating functions of Wilson loop vacuum expectation values satisfy two-related commuting sets of q-Virasoro constraints. We generalize our construction to 3d unitary quiver gauge theories and as an example we give the free boson realization of the ABJ(M) model