arXiv subjects

Timothy J. Hollowood

Publications and source records attributed to Timothy J. Hollowood.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2001

An Exact Elliptic Superpotential for N=1^* Deformations of Finite N=2 Gauge Theories

We study relevant deformations of the N=2 superconformal theory on the world-volume of N D3 branes at an A_{k-1} singularity. In particular, we determine the vacuum structure of the mass-deformed theory with N=1 supersymmetry and show how the different vacua are permuted by an extended duality symmetry. We then obtain exact, modular covariant formulae (for all k, N and arbitrary gauge couplings) for the holomorphic observables in the massive vacua in two different ways: by lifting to M-theory, and by compactification to three dimensions and subsequent use of mirror symmetry. In the latter case, we find an exact superpotential for the model which coincides with a certain combination of the quadratic Hamiltonians of the spin generalization of the elliptic Calogero-Moser integrable system.

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arXiv2001

Notes on Soliton Bound-State Problems in Gauge Theory and String Theory

We review four basic examples where string theory and/or field theory dualities predict the existence of soliton bound-states. These include the existence of threshold bound-states of D0 branes required by IIA/M duality and the closely-related bound-states of instantons in the maximally supersymmetric five dimensional gauge theory. In the IIB theory we discuss (p,q)-strings as bound-states of D and F strings, as well as the corresponding bound-states of monopoles and dyons in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory whose existence was predicted by Sen. In particular we consider the L^2-index theory relevant for counting these states. In each case we show that the bulk contribution to the index can be evaluated by relating it to an instanton effect in the corresponding theory with a compact Euclidean time dimension. The boundary contribution to the index can be determined by considering the asymptotic regions of the relevant moduli space.

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arXiv2001

The D-Instanton Partition Function

The D-instanton partition function is a fascinating quantity because in the presence of N D3-branes, and in a certain decoupling limit, it reduces to the functional integral of N=4 U(N) supersymmetric gauge theory for multi-instanton solutions. We study this quantity as a function of non-commutativity in the D3-brane theory, VEVs corresponding to separating the D3-branes and alpha'. Explicit calculations are presented in the one-instanton sector with arbitrary N, and in the large-N limit for all instanton charge. We find that for general instanton charge, the matrix theory admits a nilpotent fermionic symmetry and that the action is Q-exact. Consequently the partition function localizes on the minima of the matrix theory action. This allows us to prove some general properties of these integrals. In the non-commutative theory, the contributions come from the ``Higgs Branch'' and are equal to the Gauss-Bonnet-Chern integral of the resolved instanton moduli space. Separating the D3-branes leads to additional localizations on products of abelian instanton moduli spaces. In the commutative theory, there are additional contributions from the ``Coulomb Branch'' associated to the small instanton singularities of the instanton moduli space. We also argue that both non-commutativity and alpha'-corrections play a similar role in suppressing the contributions from these singularities. Finally we elucidate the relation between the partition function and the Euler characteristic of the instanton moduli space.

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arXiv2001

Exact Results in Noncommutative ${\cal N}=2$ Supersymmetric Gauge Theories

We study the low-energy dynamics of noncommutative $\N=2$ supersymmetric U(N) Yang-Mills theories in the Coulomb phase. Exact results are derived for the leading terms in the derivative expansion of the Wilsonian effective action. We find that in the infrared regime the U(1) subgroup decouples, and the remaining SU(N) is described by the ordinary commutative Seiberg-Witten solution. IR/UV mixing is present in the U(1), but not in SU(N). Our analysis is based on explicit perturbative and multi-instanton calculations.

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arXiv2000

A Brief History of the Stringy Instanton

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 gauge symmetry and the instantons are modified at short distances where string effects become important. By decoupling the stringy effects, one can recover all the instanton formalism, including the all-important volume form on the instanton moduli space. We describe applications of the instanton calculus to the AdS/CFT correspondence and higher derivative terms in the D3-brane effective action. In these applications, there is an interesting relation between instanton partition functions, the Euler characteristic of instanton moduli space and modular symmetry. We also describe how it is now possible to do multi-instanton calculations in gauge theory and we resolve an old puzzle involving the gluino condensate in supersymmetric QCD.

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arXiv2000

Holographic RG and Cosmology in Theories with Quasi-Localized Gravity

We study the long distance behaviour of brane theories with quasi-localized gravity. The 5D effective theory at large scales follows from a holographic renormalization group flow. As intuitively expected, the graviton is effectively four dimensional at intermediate scales and becomes five dimensional at large scales. However in the holographic effective theory the essentially 4D radion dominates at long distances and gives rise to scalar anti-gravity. The holographic description shows that at large distances the GRS model is equivalent to the model recently proposed by Dvali, Gabadadze and Porrati (DGP), where a tensionless brane is embedded into 5D Minkowski space, with an additional induced 4D Einstein-Hilbert term on the brane. In the holographic description the radion of the GRS model is automatically localized on the tensionless brane, and provides the ghost-like field necessary to cancel the extra graviton polarization of the DGP model. Thus, there is a holographic duality between these theories. This analysis provides physical insight into how the GRS model works at intermediate scales; in particular it sheds light on the size of the width of the graviton resonance, and also demonstrates how the holographic RG can be used as a practical tool for calculations.

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arXiv2000

Monopoles, affine algebras and the gluino condensate

We examine the low-energy dynamics of four-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories and calculate the values of the gluino condensate for all simple gauge groups. By initially compactifying the theory on a cylinder we are able to perform calculations in a controlled weakly-coupled way for small radius. The dominant contributions to the path integral on the cylinder arise from magnetic monopoles which play the role of instanton constituents. We find that the semi-classically generated superpotential of the theory is the affine Toda potential for an associated twisted affine algebra. We determine the supersymmetric vacua and calculate the values of the gluino condensate. The number of supersymmetric vacua is equal to c_2, the dual Coxeter number, and in each vacuum the monopoles carry a fraction 1/c_2 of topological charge. As the results are independent of the radius of the circle, they are also valid in the strong coupling regime where the theory becomes decompactified. In this way we obtain values for the gluino condensate which for the classical gauge groups agree with previously known ``weak coupling instanton'' expressions (but not with the ``strong coupling instanton'' calculations). This detailed agreement provides further evidence in favour of the recently advocated resolution of the the gluino condensate puzzle. We also make explicit predictions for the gluino condensate for the exceptional groups.

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arXiv2000

Quasi-Localization of Gravity by Resonant Modes

We examine the behaviour of gravity in brane theories with extra dimensions in a non-factorizable geometry. We find that for metrics which are asymptotically flat far from the brane there is a resonant graviton mode at zero energy. The presence of this resonance ensures quasi-localization of gravity, whereby at intermediate scales the gravitational laws on the brane are approximately four dimensional. However, for scales larger than the lifetime of the graviton resonance the five dimensional laws of gravity will be reproduced due to the decay of the four dimensional graviton. We also present a simple classification of the possible types of effective gravity theories on the brane that can appear for general non-factorizable background theories.

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arXiv2000

Graviton Propagators, Brane Bending and Bending of Light in Theories with Quasi-Localized Gravity

We derive the graviton propagator on the brane for theories with quasi-localized gravity. In these models the ordinary 4D graviton is replaced by a resonance in the spectrum of massive Kaluza-Klein modes, which can decay into the extra dimension. We find that the effects of the extra polarization in the massive graviton propagator is exactly cancelled by the bending of the brane due to the matter sources, up to small corrections proportional to the width of the resonance. Thus at intermediate scales the classic predictions of Einstein's gravity are reproduced in these models to arbitrary precision.

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arXiv2000

Black Diamonds at Brane Junctions

We discuss the properties of black holes in brane-world scenarios where our universe is viewed as a four-dimensional sub-manifold of some higher-dimensional spacetime. We consider in detail such a model where four-dimensional spacetime lies at the junction of several domain walls in a higher dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime. In this model there may be any number p of infinitely large extra dimensions transverse to the brane-world. We present an exact solution describing a black p-brane which will induce on the brane-world the Schwarzschild solution. This exact solution is unstable to the Gregory-Laflamme instability, whereby long-wavelength perturbations cause the extended horizon to fragment. We therefore argue that at late times a non-rotating uncharged black hole in the brane-world is described by a deformed event horizon in p+4 dimensions which will induce, to good approximation, the Schwarzschild solution in the four-dimensional brane world. When p=2, this deformed horizon resembles a black diamond and more generally for p>2, a polyhedron.

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arXiv2000

Universal Aspects of Gravity Localized on Thick Branes

We study gravity in backgrounds that are smooth generalizations of the Randall-Sundrum model, with and without scalar fields. These generalizations include three-branes in higher dimensional spaces which are not necessarily Anti-de Sitter far from the branes, intersecting brane configurations and configurations involving negative tension branes. We show that under certain mild assumptions there is a universal equation for the gravitational fluctuations. We study both the graviton ground state and the continuum of Kaluza-Klein modes and we find that the four-dimensional gravitational mode is localized precisely when the effects of the continuum modes decouple at distances larger than the fundamental Planck scale. The decoupling is contingent only on the long-range behaviour of the metric from the brane and we find a universal form for the corrections to Newton's Law. We also comment on the possible contribution of resonant modes. Given this, we find general classes of metrics which maintain localized four-dimensional gravity. We find that three-brane metrics in five dimensions can arise from a single scalar field source, and we rederive the BPS type conditions without any a priori assumptions regarding the form of the scalar potential. We also show that a single scalar field cannot produce conformally-flat locally intersecting brane configurations or a p-brane in greater than (p+2)-dimensions.

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arXiv1999

Gluino Condensate and Magnetic Monopoles in Supersymmetric Gluodynamics

We examine supersymmetric SU(N) gauge theories on R^3*S^1 with a circle of circumference beta. These theories interpolate between four-dimensional N=1 pure gauge theory for beta=infinity and three-dimensional N=2 gauge theory for beta=0. The dominant field configurations of the R^3*S^1 SU(N) theories in the semi-classical regime arise from N varieties of monopole. Periodic instanton configurations correspond to mixed configurations of N single monopoles of the N different types. We semi-classically evaluate the non-perturbatively generated superpotential of the R^3*S^1 theory and hence determine its vacuum structure. We then calculate monopole contributions to the gluino condensate in these theories and take the decompactification limit beta=infinity. In this way we obtain a value for the gluino condensate in the four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory, which agrees with the previously known `weak coupling' expression but not with the `strong coupling' expression derived in the early literature solely from instanton considerations. Moreover, we discover that the superpotential gives a mass to the dual (magnetic) photon, which implies confinement of the original electric photon and disappearance of all the massless modes.

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arXiv1999

ADHM and D-instantons in orbifold AdS/CFT duality

We consider ADHM instantons in product group gauge theories that arise from D3-branes located at points in the orbifold R^6/Z_p. At finite N we argue that the ADHM construction and collective coordinate integration measure can be deduced from the dynamics of D-instantons in the D3-brane background. For the large-N conformal field theories of this type, we compute a saddle-point approximation of the ADHM integration measure and show that it is proportional to the partition function of D-instantons in the dual AdS_5 x S^5/Z_p background, in agreement with the orbifold AdS/CFT correspondence. Matching the expected behaviour of D-instantons, we find that when S^5/Z_p is smooth a saddle-point solution only exists in the sector where the instanton charges in each gauge group factor are the same. However, when S^5/Z_p is singular, the instanton charges at large N need not be the same and the space of saddle-point solutions has a number of distinct branches which represent the possible fractionations of D-instantons at the singularity. For the theories with a type 0B dual the saddle-point solutions manifest two types of D-instantons.

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arXiv1999

Instantons in N=4 Sp(N) and SO(N) theories and the AdS/CFT correspondence

Following work on theories with SU(N) gauge groups, we perform a large-N saddle-point approximation of the measure for ADHM multi-instantons in N=4 supersymmetric gauge theories with symplectic or orthogonal gauge groups. For Sp(N) we find that a saddle-point only exists in the even instanton charge sector. For either Sp(N) or SO(N) the saddle-point solution parametrizes AdS_5 x RP^5, the dual supergravity geometry in the AdS/CFT correspondence for these theories. The instanton measure at large-N has the form of the partition function of ten-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric gauge theory with a unitary gauge group dimensionally reduced to zero dimensions.

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arXiv1999

Instantons, finite N=2 Sp(N) theories and the AdS/CFT correspondence

We examine ADHM multi-instantons in the conformal N=2 supersymmetric Sp(N) gauge theory with one anti-symmetric tensor and four fundamental hypermultiplets. We argue that the ADHM construction and measure can also be deduced from purely field theoretic considerations and also from the dynamics of D-instantons in the presence of D3-branes, D7-branes and an orientifold O7-plane. The measure then admits a large-N saddle-point approximation where the D3-branes disappear but the background is changed to AdS_5 x S^5/Z_2, as expected on the basis of the AdS/CFT correspondence. The large-N measure displays the fractionation of D-instantons at the singularity S^3 in S^5/Z_2 and is described for instanton number k by a certain O(k) matrix model.

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arXiv1999

Summing the Instanton Series in N=2 Superconformal Large-N QCD

We consider the multi-instanton collective coordinate integration measure in N=2 supersymmetric SU(N) gauge theory with N_F fundamental hypermultiplets. In the large-N limit, at the superconformal point where N_F=2N and all VEVs are turned off, the k-instanton moduli space collapses to a single copy of AdS_5*S^1. The resulting k-instanton effective measure is proportional to N^{1/2} g^4 Z_k^(6), where Z_k^(6) is the partition function of N=(1,0) SYM theory in six dimensions reduced to zero dimensions. The multi-instanton can in fact be summed in closed form. As a hint of an AdS/CFT duality, with the usual relation between the gauge theory and string theory parameters, this precisely matches the normalization of the charge-k D-instanton measure in type IIB string theory compactified to six dimensions on K3 with a vanishing two-cycle.

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arXiv1997

Strong Coupling N=2 Gauge Theory with Arbitrary Gauge Group

A complete definition of the cycles, on the auxiliary Riemann surface defined by Martinec and Warner for describing pure N=2 gauge theories with arbitrary group, is provided. The strong coupling monodromies around the vanishing cycles are shown to arise from a set of dyons which becomes massless at the singularities. It is shown how the correct weak coupling monodromies are reproduced and how the dyons have charges which are consistent with the spectrum that can be calculated at weak coupling using conventional semi-classical methods. In particular, the magnetic charges are co-root vectors as required by the Dirac-Schwinger-Zwanziger quantization condition.

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arXiv1997

Dyon electric charge and fermion fractionalization

A first principles calculation of the quantum corrections to the electric charge of a dyon in an N=2 gauge theory with arbitrary gauge group is presented. These corrections arise from the fermion fields via the mechanism of fermion fractionalization. For a dyon whose magnetic charge is a non-simple co-root, the correction is a discontinuous function on the moduli space of vacua and the discontinuities occur precisely on co-dimension one curves on which the dyon decays. In this way, the complete spectrum of dyons at weak coupling is found for a theory with any gauge group. It is shown how this spectrum is consistent with the semi-classical monodromies.

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