English

Three Dimensional Topological Field Theories and Nahm Sum Formulas

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-11-19 v3 Number Theory

Abstract

It is known that a large class of characters of 2d conformal field theories (CFTs) can be written in the form of a Nahm sum. In \cite{Zagier:2007knq}, D. Zagier identified a list of Nahm sum expressions that are modular functions under a congruence subgroup of SL(2,Z)SL(2,\mathbb{Z}) and can be thought of as candidates for characters of rational CFTs. Motivated by the observation that the same formulas appear as the half-indices of certain 3d N=2\mathcal{N}=2 supersymmetric gauge theories, we perform a general search over low-rank 3d N=2\mathcal{N}=2 abelian Chern-Simons matter theories which either flow to unitary TFTs or N=4\mathcal{N}=4 rank-zero SCFTs in the infrared. These are exceptional classes of 3d theories, which are expected to support rational and C2C_2-cofinite chiral algebras on their boundary. We compare and contrast our results with Zagier's and comment on a possible generalization of Nahm's conjecture.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.06081,
  title  = {Three Dimensional Topological Field Theories and Nahm Sum Formulas},
  author = {Dongmin Gang and Heeyeon Kim and Byoungyoon Park and Spencer Stubbs},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.06081},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

31 pages, v2: some clarifications, refs added, v3: minor changes