English

Surface Operators in N=2 Abelian Gauge Theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-09-30 v4 Differential Geometry Geometric Topology

Abstract

We generalise the analysis in [arXiv:0904.1744] to superspace, and explicitly prove that for any embedding of surface operators in a general, twisted N=2 pure abelian theory on an arbitrary four-manifold, the parameters transform naturally under the SL(2,Z) duality of the theory. However, for nontrivially-embedded surface operators, exact S-duality holds if and only if the "quantum" parameter effectively vanishes, while the overall SL(2,Z) duality holds up to a c-number at most, regardless. Nevertheless, this observation sets the stage for a physical proof of a remarkable mathematical result by Kronheimer and Mrowka--that expresses a "ramified" analog of the Donaldson invariants solely in terms of the ordinary Donaldson invariants--which, will appear, among other things, in forthcoming work. As a prelude to that, the effective interaction on the corresponding u-plane will be computed. In addition, the dependence on second Stiefel-Whitney classes and the appearance of a Spin^c structure in the associated low-energy Seiberg-Witten theory with surface operators, will also be demonstrated. In the process, we will stumble upon an interesting phase factor that is otherwise absent in the "unramified" case.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0906.2413,
  title  = {Surface Operators in N=2 Abelian Gauge Theory},
  author = {Meng-Chwan Tan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.2413},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

46 pages. Minor refinement

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:12:58.816Z