ASC Workshops

ASC Workshops

By The Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics (ASC)Education
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ASC Workshops episodes

  • Vortices , wall-crossing and 3d Seiberg like dualities
    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.
    58 min
  • Dual boundary conditions for 3d N=2 gauge theories, Part 1
    The talks will focus on half-BPS boundary conditions for 3d N=2 gauge theories that preserve 2d N=(0,2)
    supersymmetry. I will review (and extend) the classification of such boundary conditions and the BPS local
    operators living on them, which form chiral algebras. I define a half-index that counts boundary local operators,
    or equivalently computes a character of the boundary chiral algebra. With the help of the half-index and some
    physical intuition, I will identify the action on boundary conditions of some basic dualities, including ``mirror
    symmetries'' and level-rank dualities. This in turn leads to a definition of duality interfaces. (Work in progress
    with D. Gaiotto and N. Paquette.)
    1 hr 9 min
  • Supersymmetric partition functions and the A-model
    I will present recent results about supersymmetric partition functions of 3d N=2 and 4d N=1 supersymmetric
    gauge theories with an R-symmetry. Many partition function functions on half-BPS geometric backgrounds can
    be viewed as expectation values of codimension-2 half-BPS defect operators on C*S^1 (in 3d) or C*T^2 (in 4d),
    with C a Riemann surface. This approach greatly simplifies previous computations, and leads to new results.
    1 hr 5 min
  • E-string theory on Riemann surfaces
    We study compactifications of the 6d E-string theory, the theory of a small E_8 instanton, to four dimensions. In
    particular we identify N=1 field theories in four dimensions corresponding to compactifications on arbitrary
    Riemann surfaces with punctures and with arbitrary non-abelian flat connections as well as fluxes for the abelian
    sub-groups of the E_8 flavor symmetry. This sheds light on emergent symmetries in a number of 4d N=1 SCFTs
    (including the `E7 surprise' theory) as well as leads to new predictions for a large number of 4-dimensional
    exceptional dualities and symmetries.
    1 hr 7 min
  • Comments on Vertex Operator Algebras for N=2 SCFTs
    Every N=2 SCFT in four dimensions comes equipped with a vertex operator algebrathat encodes the spectrum
    and OPE coefficients of an infinite class of 1/4 BPS operators knownas Schur operators. I will discuss a number
    of results as well as open questions regarding thestructural properties of the VOAs that appear in this
    correspondence and their relationship to four-dimensional physics. I will discuss a proposal for how to recover of
    the Higgs branch ofvacua from the VOA and the consequences of this proposal for the behaviour of Schur superconformal
    indices under modular transformations. This leads to a surprising relationship between the a-type Weyl
    anomaly coefficient and the spectrum of surface operators in an N=2 SCFT.
    1 hr 10 min
  • The infrared fixed points of bad theories
    I will present a new approach to study the RG flow in 3d N=4 gauge theories, based on an analysis of the
    Coulomb branch of vacua, focusing on U(N) SQCD theories with fundamental matter. The Coulomb branch is
    described as a complex algebraic variety and important informations about the strongly coupled fixed points of
    the theory can be extracted from the study of its singularities. I will use this framework to revisit and clarify the
    classification of infrared fixed points in U(N) SQCD with different amounts of matter hypermultiplets, in
    particular for the so called ``bad" theories.
    1 hr 5 min

About ASC Workshops

From the publisher's feed

The Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics (ASC) in Munich regularly organizes workshops and conferences on special topics in theoretical physics, sometimes in collaboration with other…

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