Related papers: Fivebranes and 4-manifolds
In this series of lectures I present a review of the geometric structures of supergravity in diverse dimensions mostly relevant to p-brane physics and to pinpoint the correspondence between the macroscopic and microscopic description of…
We review developments in the theory of multiple, parallel membranes in M-theory. After discussing the inherent difficulties pertaining to a maximally supersymmetric lagrangian formulation with the appropriate field content and symmetries,…
We obtain the brane setup describing 3d $\mathcal{N}=2$ dualities for $USp(2N_c)$ and $U(N_c)$ SQCD with monopole superpotentials. This classification follows from a complete analysis of affine and twisted affine compactifications from 4d.…
We investigate (2+1)-dimensional quiver Chern-Simons theories that arise from the study of M2-branes probing toric Calabi-Yau 4-folds. These theories can be elegantly described using brane tilings. We present several theories that admit a…
We give a physical interpretation for the analytic continuation of the partition function of superconformal SU$(2)$ $\mathcal{N}=2$ gauge theory on the four-sphere to all values of the Yang-Mills coupling. We show that a well-motivated 2d…
We compare two applications of the gauge/gravity correspondence to a non conformal gauge theory, based respectively on the study of D-branes wrapped on supersymmetric cycles and of fractional D-branes on orbifolds. We study two brane…
We consider 6d N=(2,0) theory on N M5-branes, together with a 4d defect labeled by a Young diagram Y specifying its global symmetry G_Y. A recent conjecture states that a compactification of this system leads to a 2d theory with W-algebra…
We review recent developments in the theory of brane tilings and four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric quiver gauge theories. This review consists of two parts. In part I, we describe foundations of brane tilings, emphasizing the physical…
We develop tools for determining the gauge theory resulting from a configuration of Type IIB D3-branes probing a non-compact, toric Calabi-Yau 3-fold, in the presence of additional flavor D7-branes with general embeddings. Two main…
Using a six-orientifold on top of a NS-fivebrane we construct a chiral N=1 supersymmetric gauge theory in four dimensions with gauge group SU(N_c) and matter in the symmetric, antisymmetric and (anti)fundamental representations. Anomaly…
We construct a large class of gauge theories with extended supersymmetry on four-dimensional manifolds with a Killing vector field and isolated fixed points. We extend previous results limited to super Yang-Mills theory to general…
We identify a large class R of three-dimensional N=2 superconformal field theories. This class includes the effective theories T_M of M5-branes wrapped on 3-manifolds M, discussed in previous work by the authors, and more generally…
We use the 5-sphere partition functions of supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories to explore the (2,0) superconformal theory on S^5 x S^1. The 5d theories can be regarded as Scherk-Schwarz reductions of the 6d theory along the circle. In a…
A class of abelian fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds X_{m,n} is shown yield SU(2) structure, in addition to the standard SU(3) holonomy. Compactification of type II string theory on a manifold in this class give a 4D effective supergravity…
We extend the N=4 superconformal Chern-Simons theories of Gaiotto and Witten to those with additional twisted hyper-multiplets. The new theories are generically linear quiver gauge theories with the two types of hyper-multiplets alternating…
We study the 6-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric grand unified theories with gauge group SU(N) and $ SO(M)$ on the extra space orbifolds $T^2/(Z_2)^3$ and $T^2/(Z_2)^4$, which can be broken down to the 4-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric…
Generalizing our ideas in [arXiv:1006.3313], we explain how topologically-twisted N=2 gauge theory on a four-manifold with boundary, will allow us to furnish purely physical proofs of (i) the Atiyah-Floer conjecture, (ii) Munoz's theorem…
We calculate the Seiberg-Witten invariants of branched covers of prime degree, where the branch locus consists of embedded spheres. Aside from the formula itself, our calculations give rise to some new constraints on configurations of…
We explore two classes of 6d $\mathcal{N}=(1,0)$ little string theories obtained from type IIA/IIB NS5-branes probing $D_n$ singularities. Their tensor branches are described by effective gauge theories whose instanton solitons are…
Three dimensional N=2 gauge theories with arbitrary gauge group and fundamental flavors are engineered from degenerations of Calabi-Yau four-folds. We show how Coulomb and Higgs branches emerge in the geometric picture. The analysis of…