Related papers: Instanton counting on blowup. II. $K$-theoretic pa…
The arcane ADHM construction of Yang-Mills instantons can be very naturally understood in the framework of D-brane dynamics in string theory. In this point-of-view, the mysterious auxiliary symmetry of the ADHM construction arises as a…
We study the thermodynamics of the maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with gauge group U(N) on R x S^3, dual to type IIB superstring theory on AdS_5 x S^5. While both theories are well-known to exhibit Hagedorn behavior at infinite…
Instantons and their quantisation in pure Yang-Mills theory formulated in the background of de Sitter spacetime represented by spatially-closed ($k = 1$) Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric are discussed. As for the classical treatment of the…
We exactly compute the partition function for $U(2)_k\times U(2)_{-k}$ ABJM theory on $\mathbb S^3$ deformed by mass $m$ and Fayet-Iliopoulos parameter $\zeta $. For $k=1,2$, the partition function has an infinite number of Lee-Yang zeros.…
We study N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory with gauge group SU(2) compactified to three dimensions on a circle of circumference beta. The eight fermion terms in the effective action on the Coulomb branch are determined exactly, for…
We consider 5d $\mathcal{N}=1$ SU(2) super Yang-Mills theory on $X\times S^1$, with $X$ a closed smooth four-manifold. A partial topological twisting along $X$ renders the theory formally independent of the metric on $X$. The theory depends…
We study the instanton effective action of four-dimensional deformed N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in the presence of constant, self-dual Ramond-Ramond (R-R) 3-form background in type IIB superstring theory. We compare the instanton…
We propose a new prescription for computing the Nekrasov partition functions of five-dimensional theories with eight supercharges realized by gauging non-perturbative flavor symmetries of three five-dimensional superconformal field…
This is a self-contained set of lecture notes on instantons in (super) Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions and in quantum mechanics. First the basics are derived from scratch: the regular and singular one-instanton solutions for Yang-Mills…
We present and discuss BPS instanton solutions that appear in type II string theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau threefolds. From an effective action point of view these arise as finite action solutions of the Euclidean equations of…
We describe the modern formalism, ideas and applications of the instanton calculus for gauge theories with, and without, supersymmetry. Particular emphasis is put on developing a formalism that can deal with any number of instantons. This…
We derive the partition function of 5d ${\cal N}=1$ gauge theories on the manifold $S^3_b \times \Sigma_{\frak g}$ with a partial topological twist along the Riemann surface, $\Sigma_{\frak g}$. This setup is a higher dimensional uplift of…
We study the dual descriptions recently discovered for the Seiberg-Witten theory in the presence of surface operators. The Nekrasov partition function for a four-dimensional N=2 gauge theory with a surface operator is believed equal to the…
We study anti-self-dual Yang-Mills instantons on $\mathbb{R}^{3}\times S^{1}$, also known as calorons, and their behaviour under collapse of the circle factor. In this limit, we make explicit the decomposition of calorons in terms of…
We consider pure $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills theory when the space is compactified to a 3-dimensional sphere with finite radius. The Euclidean classical self-dual solutions of the equations of motion (the instantons) and the static finite energy…
We provide a formula for the partition function of five-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ gauge theories on $\mathcal{M}_4 \times S^1$, topologically twisted along $\mathcal{M}_4$ in the presence of general background magnetic fluxes, where…
We reconsider the relation of superconformal indices of superconformal field theories of class S with five-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory compactified on the product space of a round three-sphere and a Riemann surface. We…
We study a system of fractional D3 and D(-1) branes in a Ramond-Ramond closed string background and show that it describes the gauge instantons of N=2 super Yang-Mills theory and their interactions with the graviphoton of N=2 supergravity.…
We give a brief account of the recent progresses in super Yang-Mills theories based in particular on the application of Nekrasov's instanton technology to the case of N=1 supersymmetry. We have developed a first-principle formalism from…
Using supersymmetric localization, we consider four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal quiver gauge theories obtained from $\mathbb{Z}_n$ orbifolds of $\mathcal{N}=4$ Super Yang-Mills theory in the large $N$ limit at weak coupling.…