Related papers: Isolated vacua in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theori…

We propose a construction of non-trivial vacua for Yang-Mills theories on the 3-torus. Although we consider theories with periodic boundary conditions, twisted boundary conditions play an essential auxiliary role in our construction. In…

We consider the pure supersymmetric Yang--Mills theories placed on a small 3-dimensional spatial torus with higher orthogonal and exceptional gauge groups. The problem of constructing the quantum vacuum states is reduced to a pure…

We provide explicit formulas for the number of vacua of four-dimensional pure N=1 super Yang-Mills theories on a circle, with any simple gauge algebra and any choice of center and spectrum of line operators. These form a key ingredient in…

We find low energy equivalences between $N=2$ supersymmetric gauge theories with different simple gauge groups with and without matter. We give a construction of equivalences based on subgroups and find all examples with maximal simple…

The moduli space of flat connections for maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories, in a space-time of the form T^3xR, contains isolated points, corresponding to normalizable zero energy states, for certain simple gauge groups G. We…

We discuss the existence of $\theta$-vacua in pure Yang-Mills theory in two space-time dimensions. More precisely, a procedure is given which allows one to classify the distinct quantum theories possessing the same classical limit for an…

Classical vacuum - pure gauge - solutions of Euclidean two-dimensional SU(2) Yang-Mills theories are studied. Topologically non-trivial vacua are found in a class of gauge group elements isomorphic to $S_2$. These solutions are unexpectedly…

We study the N=1* supersymmetric gauge theories with gauge groups Sp(2n) and SO(2n+1). These theories are obtained from the corresponding N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories via a mass deformation. We show that the number of quantum…

We consider N=1 supersymmetric QCD based on the G_2 gauge group and including 3 chiral matter 7-plets. In that case, the gauge symmetry is broken completely and the instanton-generated superpotential on the classical moduli space is…

Pure N=1 super Yang-Mills theory can be realised as a certain low energy limit of M theory near certain singularities in $G_2$-holonomy spaces. For SU(n) and SO(2n) gauge groups these $M$ theory backgrounds can be regarded as strong…

We compute the number of massive vacua of N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory mass-deformed to preserve N=1 supersymmetry, for any gauge group G. We use semi-classical techniques and efficiently reproduce the known counting for A,B and…

We study the thermodynamics of maximally supersymmetric U(N) Yang-Mills theory on $\mathds{R}\times S^2$ at large $N$. The model arises as a consistent truncation of ${\cal N}=4$ super Yang-Mills on $\mathds{R}\times S^3$ and as the…

In the large-$N$ and strong-coupling limit, maximally supersymmetric SU($N$) Yang--Mills theory in $(2 + 1)$ dimensions is conjectured to be dual to the decoupling limit of a stack of $N$ D$2$-branes, which may be described by IIA…

In this thesis we discuss recent new insights in the structure of the moduli space of flat connections of Yang-Mills theory on a 3-torus. Chapter 2 discusses the computation of Witten's index for 4-dimensional gauge theories, and the…

Using the well established machinery of Wilson loop calculations we investigate the multiple vacua of two dimensional Yang-Mills theories with infinitely massive adjoint matter. In particular, via group theoretical techniques we calculate…

We study the vacuum structure and dyon spectrum of N=2 supersymmetric gauge theory in four dimensions, with gauge group SU(2). The theory turns out to have remarkably rich and physical properties which can nonetheless be described…

It has recently been argued that the confining vacua of Yang-Mills theory in the far infrared can have topological degrees of freedom given by magnetic $\mathbb{Z}_q$ gauge field, both in the non-supersymmetric case and in the N=1…

The thermodynamics of four-dimensional SU(2) N=2 super-Yang-Mills theory is examined in both high and low temperature regimes. At low temperatures, compelling evidence is found for two distinct equilibrium states related by a spontaneously…

We study two-dimensional N=(4,4) supersymmetric gauge theories which do not have classical Higgs branches, but are believed to have isolated quantum Higgs vacua. We provide arguments for the existence of such vacua based on brane dynamics…

I consider N=1 U(N) gauge theory with matter in the adjoint, fundamental and anti-fundamental representations. Focusing on the equations defining the Riemann surface that describes the quantum theory, the gaugino condensates (and related…