Related papers: Strong versus Weak Coupling Confinement in N=2 Sup…
We revisit the study of the maximally singular point in the Coulomb branch of 4d N=2 SU(N) gauge theory with N_f=2n flavors for N_f<2N. When n >= 2, we find that the low-energy physics is described by two non-trivial superconformal field…
The phase diagram of SU(N) gauge theories with fermions in an arbitrary representation R can be calculated on finite volume manifolds such as S^1 x S^3. When S^3 is small a perturbative analysis is possible and the weak-coupling analogue of…
We study aspects of confinement in the M theory fivebrane version of QCD (MQCD). We show heavy quarks are confined in hadrons (which take the form of membrane-fivebrane bound states) for N=1 and softly broken N=2 SU(Nc) MQCD. We explore and…
As a simple model for dark matter, we propose a QCD-like theory based on $\rm{SU}(2)$ gauge theory with one flavor of dark quark. The model is confining at low energy and we use lattice simulations to investigate the properties of the…
We study a three-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric $G_2$ gauge theory with and without fundamental matters. We find that a classical Coulomb branch of the moduli space of vacua is partly lifted by monopole-instantons and the…
We study $N=1$ supersymmetric $SP(N_c)$ gauge theories with $N_f$ flavors of quarks in the fundamental representation. Depending on $N_f$ and $N_c$, we find exact, dynamically generated superpotentials, smooth quantum moduli spaces of…
We consider the two complex dimensional moduli space of supersymmetric vacua for low energy effective N=2 SYM with gauge group SU(3). We describe, at the topological level, a consistent model of how the relevant curves of marginal stability…
These lectures provide an introduction to the behavior of strongly-coupled supersymmetric gauge theories. After a discussion of the effective Lagrangian in nonsupersymmetric and supersymmetric field theories, I analyze the qualitative…
We extend previous work on the soft breaking of $N=2$ supersymmetric QCD. We present the formalism for the breaking due to a dilaton spurion for a general gauge group and obtain the exact effective potential. We obtain some general features…
The vacuum of supersymmetric gauge theories (SQCD) with N=2 softly broken to N=1 resembles that of a BCS superconductor in that it has a condensate which collimates flux into vortices, leading to confinement. We embed the SQCD vortex into…
We present a strong-weak coupling duality for quantum mechanical potentials. Similarly to what happens in quantum field theory, it relates two problems with inverse couplings, leading to a mapping of the strong coupling regime into the weak…
In recent work, we derived the long-distance confining dynamics of certain QCD-like gauge theories formulated on small $S^1 \times \R^3$ based on symmetries, an index theorem, and Abelian duality. Here, we give the microscopic derivation.…
Effective superpotentials for the phase with a confined photon are obtained in $N=1$ supersymmetric gauge theories. We use the results to derive the hyperelliptic curves which describe the Coulomb phase of $N=2$ theories with classical…
We propose new classes of $4d$ $\mathcal{N}\!=\!1$ S-confining gauge theories, with a simple gauge group, rank-two matter and cubic superpotentials. The gauge group can be symplectic, orthogonal or special unitary. In some cases we derive…
We find the phase and flavor symmetry breaking pattern of each N=1 supersymmetric vacuum of SU(n_c) and USp(2 n_c) gauge theories, constructed from the exactly solvable N=2 theories by perturbing them with small adjoint and generic bare…
Several dynamical aspects of the SU(2) Seiberg-Witten models with N_f quark hypermultiplets are explored. We first clarify the meaning of the number of the singularities of the space of vacua. CP invariance of the theories are then studied…
We study the vacuum structure of the U(N) gauge model with partially broken N=2 supersymmetry. From the analysis of the classical vacua of this model, we point out that in addition to the ordinary N=1 supersymmetric vacua, there are vacua…
We study N=1 gauge theories obtained by adding finite mass terms to N=4 Yang-Mills theory. The Maldacena dual is nonsingular: in each of the many vacua, there is an extended brane source, arising from Myers' dielectric effect. The source…
In pure N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills with gauge group SU(N), the domain walls which separate the N vacua have been argued, on the basis of string theory realizations, to be D-branes for the confining string. In a certain limit, this means…
We consider N =1 supersymmetric QCD with the gauge group U(N) and N_f=N quark flavors. To get rid of flat directions we add a meson superfield. The theory has no adjoint fields and, therefore, no 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles in the…