English

Topological wave functions and heat equations

High Energy Physics - Theory 2011-02-09 v4

Abstract

It is generally known that the holomorphic anomaly equations in topological string theory reflect the quantum mechanical nature of the topological string partition function. We present two new results which make this assertion more precise: (i) we give a new, purely holomorphic version of the holomorphic anomaly equations, clarifying their relation to the heat equation satisfied by the Jacobi theta series; (ii) in cases where the moduli space is a Hermitian symmetric tube domain G/KG/K, we show that the general solution of the anomaly equations is a matrix element \IPΨgΩ\IP{\Psi | g | \Omega} of the Schr\"odinger-Weil representation of a Heisenberg extension of GG, between an arbitrary state Ψ\bra{\Psi} and a particular vacuum state Ω\ket{\Omega}. Based on these results, we speculate on the existence of a one-parameter generalization of the usual topological amplitude, which in symmetric cases transforms in the smallest unitary representation of the duality group GG' in three dimensions, and on its relations to hypermultiplet couplings, nonabelian Donaldson-Thomas theory and black hole degeneracies.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0607200,
  title  = {Topological wave functions and heat equations},
  author = {Murat Gunaydin and Andrew Neitzke and Boris Pioline},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0607200},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

50 pages; v2: small typos fixed, references added; v3: cosmetic changes, published version; v4: typos fixed, small clarification added

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:37:26.025Z