English

Surface Operators in N=2 4d Gauge Theories

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-05-14 v1

Abstract

N=2 four dimensional gauge theories admit interesting half BPS surface operators preserving a (2,2) two dimensional SUSY algebra. Typical examples are (2,2) 2d sigma models with a flavor symmetry which is coupled to the 4d gauge fields. Interesting features of such 2d sigma models, such as (twisted) chiral rings, and the tt* geometry, can be carried over to the surface operators, and are affected in surprising ways by the coupling to 4d degrees of freedom. We will describe in detail a relation between the parameter space of twisted couplings of the surface operator and the Seiberg-Witten geometry of the bulk theory. We will discuss a similar result about the tt* geometry of the surface operator. We will predict the existence and general features of a wall-crossing formula for BPS particles bound to the surface operator.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0911.1316,
  title  = {Surface Operators in N=2 4d Gauge Theories},
  author = {Davide Gaiotto},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0911.1316},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

25 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T14:08:28.059Z