English

A Unified Geometric Framework for BPS Flows: Split Attractor, Hessian, and Spectral Networks

Mathematical Physics 2026-06-28 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We provide a systematic and rigorous geometric framework that relates three structures naturally associated to BPS central charges in N=2\mathcal{N}=2 supersymmetric gauge theories: the split attractor flow (SAF) of Z|Z|, the Hessian flow (HF) of Im(eiϑZ)\operatorname{Im}(e^{-i\vartheta}Z), and the spectral network (SN) on the base curve of the Hitchin fibration. Our main contributions are: (i) a concise proof of orthogonality between SAF and gradient Hessian flow using only the Kahler structure; (ii) a precise lift-projection duality showing that the spectral network projects to the *characteristic Hessian flow* (the Hamiltonian flow of Im(eiϑZ)\operatorname{Im}(e^{-i\vartheta}Z)) on the Hitchin base, clarifying a crucial distinction; (iii) a complete proof of the Kontsevich-Soibelman (KS) equivariance by induction on the SAF tree depth, with the geometric ordering provided by the characteristic Hessian flow. We illustrate the framework with detailed and nontrivial examples: SU(2)SU(2) pure and Nf=4N_f=4 (including new BPS indices for higher flavour charges), SU(3)SU(3) pure (full BPS spectrum reconstruction), SU(4)SU(4), the Kronecker 33-quiver, and we apply the induction to derive a closed-form BPS spectrum for the Argyres-Douglas H1H_1 theory, Ω(nα1+mα2)=(n+mn)\Omega(n\alpha_1+m\alpha_2)=\binom{n+m}{n}, which is a new result. In the tropical limit we obtain an explicit generating function for disk counts in SU(N)SU(N) gauge theories, ZdiskSU(N)=αΦ+k1(1ekα,y)(k+ht(α)1ht(α)1)Z_{\mathrm{disk}}^{SU(N)} = \prod_{\alpha\in\Phi_+}\prod_{k\ge1}(1-e^{-k\langle\alpha,y\rangle})^{-\binom{k+\mathrm{ht}(\alpha)-1}{\mathrm{ht}(\alpha)-1}}, which follows directly from our recursion. These results demonstrate the computational power of the unified framework and provide new, verifiable predictions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2606.29190,
  title  = {A Unified Geometric Framework for BPS Flows: Split Attractor, Hessian, and Spectral Networks},
  author = {Qiang Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.29190},
  year   = {2026}
}

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20 pages