English

Codimension-Two Defects and SYM on Orbifolds

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-05-26 v3

Abstract

We study U(N)U(N) SYM theories on spaces with orbifold singularities via an equivalent description in terms of gauge theories on smooth manifolds with insertions of Gukov-Witten and twist defects. The combined effect of the defects is to render the fields multivalued with respect to rotations around the support of the defects. This motivates a relation with theories on branched covers, for which the multivaluedness has a geometric interpretation. We compute the partition function of the theory with defects on a patch and use it as a building block to compute partition functions on several closed spaces with conical singularities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.13611,
  title  = {Codimension-Two Defects and SYM on Orbifolds},
  author = {Roman Mauch and Lorenzo Ruggeri},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.13611},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

29 pages, 2 figures, typos fixed

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:49:53.418Z