Vertex Superalgebras for Hypertoric Varieties and 3d Abelian Gauge Theories

Abstract

Hypertoric (or toric hyperk\"ahler) varieties are a class of symplectic singularities and their resolutions, obtained as Hamiltonian reductions of a symplectic vector space acted on by a torus. In physics, they appear as Higgs (and Coulomb) branches of 3d $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric quantum field theories with abelian gauge group. In this work, we construct an $\hbar$-adic (in the sense of microlocalisation) sheaf of vertex operator superalgebras over a given smooth hypertoric variety. Its global sections give the $A$-twisted boundary of the corresponding 3d gauge theory. We use this to prove that the associated affine variety of this hypertoric vertex operator superalgebra recovers the singular hypertoric variety. This proves the 3d Higgs branch conjecture for a large class of boundary vertex operator superalgebras. In particular, these vertex operator superalgebras are quasi-lisse. This is in contrast to the (purely even) hypertoric vertex operator superalgebras (and their $\hbar$-adic localisations) constructed previously by Kuwabara as global sections of sheaves on families of universal Poisson deformations of the hypertoric varieties. These are generally not quasi-lisse. We show that the vertex operator superalgebras defined in this paper are (fermionic) simple-current extensions of those defined by Kuwabara, and investigate the consequences for symplectic duality and characters. We observe that the latter are upgraded from partial (or false) theta functions to quasimodular forms.