Distinguishing 6d (1,0) SCFTs: an extension to the geometric construction
We provide a new extension to the geometric construction of 6d (1, 0) SCFTs that encap- sulates Higgs branch structures with identical global symmetry but different spectra. In particular, we find that there exist distinct 6d (1, 0) SCFTs that may appear to share their tensor branch description, flavor symmetry algebras, and central charges. For example, such subtleties arise for the very even nilpotent Higgsing of (so4k,so4k) conformal matter; we pro- pose a method to predict at which conformal dimension the Higgs branch operators of the two theories differ via augmenting the tensor branch description with the Higgs branch chiral ring generators of the building block theories. Torus compactifications of these 6d (1, 0) SCFTs give rise to 4d N = 2 SCFTs of class S and the Higgs branch of such 4d theories are cap- tured via the Hall–Littlewood index. We confirm that the resulting 4d theories indeed differ in their spectra in the predicted conformal dimension from their Hall–Littlewood indices. We highlight how this ambiguity in the tensor branch description arises beyond the very even nilpotent Higgsing of (so4k,so4k) conformal matter, and hence should be understood for more general classes of 6d (1, 0) SCFTs.
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NSF-PAR ID:
10339046
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ArXivorg
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2331-8422
4. A bstract There is a well-known map from 4d $$\mathcal{N}$$ N = 2 superconformal field theories (SCFTs) to 2d vertex operator algebras (VOAs). The 4d Schur index corresponds to the VOA vacuum character, and must be a solution with integral coefficients of a modular differential equation. This suggests a classification program for 4d $$\mathcal{N}$$ N = 2 SCFTs that starts with modular differential equations and proceeds by imposing all known constraints that follow from the 4d → 2d map. This program becomes fully algorithmic once one specifies the order of the modular differential equation and the rank (complex dimension of the Coulomb branch) of the $$\mathcal{N}$$ N = 2 theory. As a proof of concept, we apply the algorithm to the study of rank-two $$\mathcal{N}$$ N = 2 SCFTs whose Schur indices satisfy a fourth-order untwisted modular differential equation. Scanning over a large number of putative cases, only 15 satisfy all of the constraints imposed by our algorithm, six of which correspond to known 4d SCFTs. More sophisticated constraints can be used to argue against the existence of the remaining nine cases. Altogether, this indicates that our knowledge of such rank-two SCFTsmore »
5. A bstract Three-dimensional $$\mathcal{N}$$ N = 4 superconformal field theories contain 1d topological sectors consisting of twisted linear combinations of half-BPS local operators that can be inserted anywhere along a line. After a conformal mapping to a round three-sphere, the 1d sectors are now defined on a great circle of S 3 . We show that the 1d topological sectors are preserved under the squashing of the sphere. For gauge theories with matter hypermultiplets, we use supersymmetric localization to derive an explicit description of the topological sector associated with the Higgs branch. Furthermore, we find that the dependence of the 1d correlation functions on the squashing parameter b can be removed after appropriate rescalings. One can introduce real mass and Fayet-Iliopolous parameters that, after appropriate rescalings, modify the 1d theory on the squashed sphere precisely as they do on the round sphere. In addition, we also show that when a generic 3d $$\mathcal{N}$$ N = 4 theory is deformed by real mass parameters, this deformation translates into a universal deformation of the corresponding 1d theory.