Quantum Fields and Strings

The moduli space of vacua of 3d N=4 gauge theories splits essentially into two ``branches”: the Higgs branch parametrised by the vevs of hypermultiplet scalars and the Coulomb branch parametrised by the vevs of dressed monopole operators. They can be described as complex algebraic varieties. I will present a new approach to the analysis of the Higgs and Coulomb branches based on the type IIB brane realisation of the gauge theory. Focusing on abelian theories, I will show how the addition of new ingredients in the brane setup can be linked to the path integral insertions of Higgs or Coulomb operators. I will explain how this construction can be used to derive the ring relations and study mirror symmetry.

1. The notion of wall-crossing structure (as defined by Maxim Kontsevich and myself in arXiv: 1303.3253)
provides the  universal framework for description of different types of wall-crossing formulas (e.g. Cecotti-Vafa in 2d or KSWCF in 4d). It also gives
a language and tools for proving algebraicity and analyticity of arising generating series (e.g. for BPS invariants).

2. Holomorphic Floer theory is the Floer theory of a pair of complex Lagrangian subvarieties  of a complex symplectic manifold (maybe infinite-dimensional).
This geometry underlies several important topics, both in mathematics and physics. Those  include  questions about analytic continuation of exponential integrals
(e.g. Feynman integrals),
deformation quantization of holomorphic symplectic manifolds (and related Riemann-Hilbert correspondences), Geometric Langlands correspondence, etc.

3. It was known for a long time that many a priori divergent series (like e.g. formal WKB series for solutions of equations with a small parameter) become analytic or meromorphic functions after taking their Laplace transform
(Borel resummation). This property was called  the resurgence property of the divergent series. The relation of the resurgence phenomenon to simplest wall-crossing formulas was realized in the early 90's in the work of French mathematicians (Ecale, Voros, Pham , Malgrange and  others).

I plan to discuss how the combination of 1 and 2 can be applied to 3 in a very general situation.
Main idea goes back to our theory of Donaldson-Thomas invariants (arXiv: 0811.2435).
Namely, analyticity of the formal series  follows from existence of a global analytic object which is glued from the local ones by means of the formal series.
This analytification of  an a priori formal variety is a by-product of the growth estimates on the data of the underlying wall-crossing structure.

In case of the Holomorphic Floer theory (which underlies e.g. the Stokes phenomenon for the WKB solutions of PDE or difference equations) one needs an estimate on the number of pseudo-holomorphic discs
with the boundary on the union of our Lagrangian subvarieties. In practice it often appears as an estimate on the number of gradient lines between two critical points
of the action or potential.

The past few years have seen a surge of interest in six-dimensional superconformal field theories (6D SCFTs).  Notably, 6D SCFTs have recently been classified using F-theory, which relates these theories to elliptically-fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds.  Classes of 6D SCFTs have remarkable connections to structures in group theory and therefore provide a physical link between two seemingly-unrelated mathematical objects.  In this talk, we describe this link and speculate on its implications for future studies of 6D SCFTs.

3d N=4 theories on the sphere have interesting supersymmetric sectors described by 1d QFTs and defined as the cohomology of a certain supercharge. One can define such a 1d sector for the Higgs branch or for the Coulomb branch. We study the Higgs branch case, meaning that the 1d QFT captures exact correlation functions of the Higgs branch operators of the 3d theory. The OPE of the 1d theory gives a star-product on the Higgs branch which encodes the data of these correlation functions. When the 3d theory is superconformal, the 1d theory is topological and coincides with the known construction in flat space, where the topological 1d theory lives in the cohomology of Q+S. Our construction thus generalizes it away from the conformal point. We then focus on theories constructed from vector and hypermultiplets. Using supersymmetric localization, we explicitly describe their 1d sector as the gauged topological quantum mechanics, or equivalently a gaussian theory coupled to a matrix model. This provides a very simple technique to compute the Higgs branch correlators.

The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model exhibits conformal invariance and a maximal Lyapunov exponent in the large-N and low temperature limit, and thus belongs to the same universality class as a two-dimensional anti-de Sitter black hole. Poles corresponding to a tower of operators that are bilinear in the microscopic Majorana fermions can be found in the four-point function of the fermions. We propose a renormalization theory for UV perturbations to the model, and derive an effective action for the soft mode of the model that results from integrating out the lowest resonance and which is dominant in the IR. We show that a two-dimensional dilaton theory with a quadratic term precisely reproduces this effective action on its boundary.

We will study the entanglement structure of states in Chern-Simons (CS) theory defined on n-copies of a torus. We will focus on states created by performing the path-integral of CS theory on special 3-manifolds, namely link complements of n-component links in S^3. The corresponding entanglement entropies provide new framing independent link-invariants. In U(1)_k CS theory, we will give a general formula for the entanglement entropy across a bi-partition of a generic n-link into sub-links. In the non-Abelian case, we study various interesting 2 & 3-links including the Whitehead link & Borromean rings, both of which have non-trivial entanglement entropies. 

I will discuss the coupling of non-relativistic field theories to curved spacetime, and develop a framework for analyzing the possible structure of non-relativistic (Lifshitz) scale anomalies using a cohomological formulation of the Wess-Zumino consistency condition. I will compare between cases with or without Galilean boost symmetry, and between cases with or without an equal time foliation of spacetime. In 2+1 dimensions with a dynamical critical exponent of z=2, the absence of a foliation structure allows for an A-type anomaly in the Galilean case, but also introduces the possibility of an infinite set of B-type anomalies.

I will also derive Ward identities for flat space correlation functions in Lifshitz field theories, and develop a method for calculating Lifshitz anomaly coefficients from these correlation functions using split dimensional regularization.

We study the effective twisted superpotential of 3d N=2 gauge theories compactified on a circle.  This is a rich object which encodes much of the protected information in these theories.  We review its properties, and survey some applications, including the algebra of Wilson loops, computation of supersymmetric partition functions on S^1 bundles, and the reduction of 3d dualities to two dimensions.

Abstract: We present the foundation for a holographic dictionary with depth perception. The dictionary consists of natural operators associated with CFT bilocals whose duals are simple, diffeomorphism-invariant bulk operators.  These objects admit a description as fields in kinematic space, a phase space for such probes.  The framework of kinematic space allows for conceptually simple derivations of many results known in the literature, including linearized Einstein’s equations, the relationship between conformal blocks and geodesic Witten diagrams, and the CFT representation of bulk local operators.   Reference: https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.03110

The space of causal diamonds recently brought to attention by de Boer et al. and Czech et al. provides an organizing principle for the dependence of entanglement entropy in conformal field theories on the spatial subregion considered. I will show that the inclusion relation of causal diamonds does not give rise to a consistent notion of a causal structure and thus does not provide an alternate metric on this space. I will also show that the entanglement entropy of ball shaped regions is not enough to reconstruct the areas of higher dimensional bulk surfaces in a static geometry. Instead, I will provide a new direction for the reconstruction of the areas of bulk surfaces from boundary data in holography, using the shape derivatives of the entanglement entropy of nearly ball shaped regions.

We consider conformal blocks of two heavy operators and an arbitrary  number of light operators in a 1+1 dimensional CFT with large central charge. Using the monodromy method, these higher-point  conformal blocks are shown to factorize into products of 4-point conformal blocks in the heavy-light limit for a class of OPE channels. This result is reproduced by considering suitable worldline configurations in the bulk conical defect geometry. We apply the CFT results to calculate the entanglement entropy of an arbitrary number of  disjoint intervals for heavy states. The corresponding holographic entanglement entropy calculated via the minimal area prescription precisely matches these results from CFT.

What natural CFT quantities can “see” in the interior of the bulk AdS in a diffeomorphism invariant way? And how can we use them to learn about the emergence of local bulk physics? Inspired by the Ryu-Takayanagi relation, we construct a class of simple non-local operators on both sides of the duality and demonstrate their equivalence. Integrals of free bulk fields along geodesics/minimal surfaces are dual to what we will call “OPE blocks”: Individual conformal family contributions to the OPE of local operators. Our findings can be utilized to reconstruct local bulk operators and unify a number of previously disconnected AdS/CFT results. We extend this kinematic correspondence to incorporate gravitational interactions in AdS3 by relating geodesic operators to the Virasoro OPE blocks, hence providing a natural CFT prescription for “gravitational dressing”. We conclude with discussion of preliminary results on an interesting CFT structure that generalizes our dictionary to include arbitrary local bulk interactions.