331 research outputs found
Quantum Higgs branches of isolated N=2 superconformal field theories
We study the Higgs branches of the superconformal points of four-dimensional
N=2 super Yang-Mills (SYM) which appear due to the occurrence of mutually local
monopoles having appropriate charges. We show, for example, that the maximal
superconformal point of SU(2n) SYM has a Higgs branch of the form C^2/Z_n.
These Higgs branches are intrinsic to the superconformal field theory (SCFT) at
the superconformal point, but do not appear in the SYM theory in which it is
embedded. This is because the embedding is a UV extension of the SCFT in which
some global symmetry acting on the Higgs branch is gauged irrelevantly. Higgs
branches deduced from earlier direct studies of these isolated SCFTs using BPS
wall-crossing or 3-d mirror symmetry agree with the ones we find here using
just the Seiberg-Witten data for the SYM theories.Comment: 18 page
Singular points in N=2 SQCD
We revisit the study of singular points in N=2 SQCD with classical gauge
groups. Using a technique proposed recently by Gaiotto, Seiberg and Tachikawa
we find that the low-energy physics at the maximally singular point involves
two superconformal sectors coupled to an infrared free SU(2) gauge group. When
one softly breaks extended supersymmetry to N=1 adding a mass term for the
chiral multiplet in the adjoint representation, a finite number of vacua remain
and the theory becomes confining. Our analysis allows to identify the
low-energy physics at these distinguished points in the moduli space. In some
cases, which we will describe in detail, two sectors coupled to an infrared
free SU(2) gauge group emerge as before. For USp and SO gauge groups one of
these sectors is always free, contrary to the SU case.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure
Comments on scaling limits of 4d N=2 theories
We revisit the study of the maximally singular point in the Coulomb branch of
4d N=2 SU(N) gauge theory with N_f=2n flavors for N_f= 2, we find
that the low-energy physics is described by two non-trivial superconformal
field theories coupled to a magnetic SU(2) gauge group which is infrared free.
(In the special case n=2, one of these theories is a theory of free
hypermultiplets.) This observation removes a possible counter example to a
conjectured a-theorem.Comment: 13 page
Tinkertoys for Gaiotto Duality
We describe a procedure for classifying N=2 superconformal theories of the
type introduced by Davide Gaiotto. Any curve, C, on which the 6D A_{N-1} SCFT
is compactified, can be decomposed into 3-punctured spheres, connected by
cylinders. We classify the spheres, and the cylinders that connect them. The
classification is carried out explicitly, up through N=5, and for several
families of SCFTs for arbitrary N. These lead to a wealth of new S-dualities
between Lagrangian and non-Lagrangian N=2 SCFTs.Comment: 61 pages, 136 figures (a veritable comic book). V2: Grotty bitmapped
figures replaced with PDF versions; a couple of references fixe
On 4d rank-one N=3 superconformal field theories
We study the properties of 4d N=3 superconformal field theories whose rank is
one, i.e. those that reduce to a single vector multiplet on their moduli space
of vacua. We find that the moduli space can only be of the form C^3/Z_k for
k=1,2,3,4,6, and that the supersymmetry automatically enhances to N=4 for
k=1,2. In addition, we determine the central charges a and c in terms of k, and
construct the associated 2d chiral algebras, which turn out to be exotic N=2
supersymmetric W-algebras.Comment: 24 page
Argyres-Douglas Loci, Singularity Structures and Wall-Crossings in Pure N=2 Gauge Theories with Classical Gauge Groups
N=2 Seiberg-Witten theories allow an interesting interplay between the
Argyres-Douglas loci, singularity structures and wall-crossing formulae. In
this paper we investigate this connection by first studying the singularity
structures of hyper-elliptic Seiberg-Witten curves for pure N=2 gauge theories
with SU(r+1) and Sp(2r) gauge groups, and propose new methods to locate the
Argyres-Douglas loci in the moduli space, where multiple mutually non-local BPS
states become massless. In a region of the moduli space, we compute dyon
charges for all 2r+2 and 2r+1 massless dyons for SU(r+1) and Sp(2r) gauge
groups respectively for rank r>1. From here we elucidate the connection to the
wall-crossing phenomena for pure Sp(4) Seiberg-Witten theory near the
Argyres-Douglas loci, despite our emphasis being only at the massless sector of
the BPS spectra. We also present 2r-1 candidates for the maximal
Argyres-Douglas points for pure SO(2r+1) Seiberg-Witten theory.Comment: 81 pages, 41 figures, LaTeX; v2: Minor cosmetic changes and
correction of a typographical error in acknowledgement. Final version to
appear in JHE
Argyres-Douglas theories and S-duality
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are creditedM.B. and T.N. are partly supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grants DOE-SC0010008, DOE-ARRA-SC0003883, and DOE-DE-SC0007897.
This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No.
NSF PHY11-25915. S.G. is partially supported by the ERC Advanced Grant “SyDuGraM”,
by FNRS-Belgium (convention FRFC PDR T.1025.14 and convention IISN 4.4514.08) and by the “Communaut´e Francaise de Belgique” through the ARC progra
More Three Dimensional Mirror Pairs
We found a lot of new three dimensional N = 4 mirror pairs generalizing
previous considerations on three dimensional generalized quiver gauge theories.
We recovered almost all previous discovered mirror pairs with these
constructions. One side of these mirror pairs are always the conventional
quiver gauge theories. One of our result can also be used to determine the
matter content and weakly coupled gauge groups of four dimensional N = 2
generalized quiver gauge theories derived from six dimensional A_N and D_N
theory, therefore we explicitly constructed four dimensional S-duality pairs.Comment: 33 pages, 18 figures version2 minor correction
Constraints on chiral operators in N=2 SCFTs
Open Access, © The Authors. Article funded by SCOAP3.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (
CC-BY 4.0
), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited
General Argyres-Douglas Theory
We construct a large class of Argyres-Douglas type theories by compactifying
six dimensional (2,0) A_N theory on a Riemann surface with irregular
singularities. We give a complete classification for the choices of Riemann
surface and the singularities. The Seiberg-Witten curve and scaling dimensions
of the operator spectrum are worked out. Three dimensional mirror theory and
the central charges a and c are also calculated for some subsets, etc. Our
results greatly enlarge the landscape of N=2 superconformal field theory and in
fact also include previous theories constructed using regular singularity on
the sphere.Comment: 55 pages, 20 figures, minor revision and typos correcte
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