Geometry of N=2 Supersymmetry 1 of 4
Date: Mon, Aug 23, 2021
Location: PIMS, University of Saskatchewan, Online, Zoom
Conference: 2nd PIMS Summer School on Algebraic Geometry in High Energy Physics
Subject: Mathematics, Algebraic Geometry, Physics, Particle Physics and Quantum Field Theory
Class: Scientific
CRG: Quantum Topology and its Applications
Abstract:
Coulomb branches of N=2 supersymmetric field theories in four dimensions support a rich geometry. My aim in these lectures will be to explain some aspects of this geometry, and its relation to the physics of the N=2 theories themselves.
I will first describe various constructions of N=2 theories and the corresponding Coulomb branches. In this story the main geometry visible is that of a complex integrable system, fibered over the Coulomb branch; one nice class of examples is associated to the Hitchin integrable system (moduli space of Higgs bundles over a Riemann surface). Fundamental objects in the N=2 theory (local operators, line operators, surface operators) all have geometric counterparts in the integrable system, as I will explain.
Next I will discuss a deformation of the story, which arises in physics from the Nekrasov-Shatashvili Omega-background. In this deformation, the Coulomb branch is replaced by a closely related space; for instance, the base of the Hitchin integrable system is replaced by a space parameterizing opers over the Riemann surface. One can use this deformation to give a concrete picture of the space of opers; in so doing one meets Stokes phenomena which are governed by the BPS indices (Donaldson-Thomas invariants) of the N=2 theory. This turns out to be closely related to the "exact WKB method" in analysis of ODEs. It is also connected to Riemann-Hilbert problems of a sort recently investigated by Bridgeland, as I will describe if time permits.
