Related papers: Proving the 6d a-theorem with the double affine Gr…
We show that there is a non-trivial relationship between the dilaton of IIB supergravity, and the coset of scalar fields in five-dimensional, gauged N=8 supergravity. This has important consequences for the running of the gauge coupling in…
We study the viability of five-dimensional gauge theories as candidates for the origin of the Higgs field and its mechanism for spontaneous symmetry breaking. Within the framework of lattice field theory, we consider the simplest model of…
The question of what happens when the heterotic SO(32) instanton becomes small was answered sometime back by Witten. The heterotic theory develops an enhanced Sp(2k) gauge symmetry for k small instantons, besides the allowed SO(32) gauge…
Witten's linear sigma model for ADHM instantons possesses a natural $(0,4)$ supersymmetry. We study generalizations of the infrared limit of the model that are invariant under $(4,4)$ supersymmetry. In the case of four space-time dimensions…
We study, using ADHM construction, instanton effects in an ${\CN}=2$ superconformal $Sp(N)$ gauge theory, arising as effective field theory on a system of $N$ D-3-branes near an orientifold 7-plane and 8 D-7-branes in type I' string theory.…
In the recent paper on "The Higgs Legacy of the LHC Run I" we interpreted the LHC Higgs results in terms of an effective Lagrangian using the SFitter framework. For the on-shell Higgs analysis of rates and kinematic distributions we relied…
The supergravity dual of superconformal anomaly in a four-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theory is investigated. We consider a well-established dual correspondence between the ${\cal N}=1$ $SU(N+M)\times SU(N)$ supersymmetric gauge theory…
We study (1,0) and (2,0) 6D superconformal field theories (SCFTs) that can be constructed in F-theory. Quite surprisingly, all of them involve an orbifold singularity C^2 / G with G a discrete subgroup of U(2). When G is a subgroup of…
Holographic RG flows dual to QFTs on maximally symmetric curved manifolds (dS$_d$, AdS$_d$, and $S^d$) are considered in the framework of Einstein-dilaton gravity in $d+1$ dimensions. A general dilaton potential is used and the flows are…
An interpolating function $\tilde F$ between the $a$-anomaly coefficient in even dimensions and the free energy on an odd-dimensional sphere has been proposed recently and is conjectured to monotonically decrease along any renormalization…
The article is a contribution to the local theory of geometric Langlands correspondence. The main result is a categorification of the isomorphism between the (extended) affine Hecke algebra, thought of as an algebra of Iwahori bi-invariant…
We analyse the Higgs branch of 4d $\mathcal{N}=2$ SQCD gauge theories with non-connected gauge groups $\widetilde{\mathrm{SU}}(N) = \mathrm{SU}(N) \rtimes_{I,II} \mathbb{Z}_2$ whose study was initiated in arXiv:1804.01108. We derive the…
Extending the Higgs sector of the MSSM by triplets alleviates the little hierarchy problem and naturally allows for enhancements in the diphoton decay rate of the lightest CP-even Higgs h. In the present paper we analyze in detail the Higgs…
We construct intersecting D-brane configurations that encode the gauge groups and field content of dual N=4 supersymmetric gauge theories in three dimensions. The duality which exchanges the Coulomb and Higgs branches and the…
We construct cross sections for the geodesic flow on the orbifolds $\Gamma\backslash H$ which are tailor-made for the requirements of transfer operator approaches to Maass cusp forms and Selberg zeta functions. Here, $H$ denotes the…
We study the moduli space of self-dual instantons on $\mathbb{C}P^2$. These are described by an ADHM-like construction which allows to compute the Hilbert series of the moduli space. The latter has been found to be blind to certain compact…
In this note I review the construction of higher-dimensional instantons and heterotic NS5-branes on Ricci-flat cones from arXiv:1109.3552, as well as fractional strings from arXiv:1202.5046. The focus is on methods and interpretation. I…
Recently, AdS_7 solutions of IIA supergravity have been classified; there are infinitely many of them, whose expression is known analytically, and with internal space of S^3 topology. Their field theory duals are six-dimensional (1,0)…
Low--energy limits of N=2 supersymmetric field theories in the Higgs branch are described in terms of a non--linear 4--dimensional sigma--model on a \hk target space, classically obtained as a \hk quotient of the original flat…
6d SCFTs compactified on a circle can often be studied from nonperturbative 5d super-Yang-Mills theories, using instanton solitons. However, the 5d Yang-Mills theories with 6d UV fixed points frequently have too many hypermultiplet matters,…