Abstract
T-branes are exotic bound states of D-branes, characterized by mutually non-commuting vacuum expectation values for the worldvolume scalars. The M/F-theory geometry lifting D6/D7-brane configurations is blind to the T-brane data. In this paper, we make this data manifest, by probing the geometry with an M2-brane. We find that the effect of a T-brane is to deform the membrane worldvolume superpotential with monopole operators, which partially break the three-dimensional flavor symmetry, and reduce super-symmetry from \( \mathcal{N} \) = 4 to \( \mathcal{N} \) = 2. Our main tool is 3d mirror symmetry. Through this language, a very concrete framework is developed for understanding T-branes in M-theory. This leads us to uncover a new class of \( \mathcal{N} \) = 2 quiver gauge theories, whose Higgs branches mimic those of membranes at ADE singularities, but whose Coulomb branches differ from their \( \mathcal{N} \) = 4 counterparts.
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ArXiv ePrint: 1603.00062
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Collinucci, A., Giacomelli, S., Savelli, R. et al. T-branes through 3d mirror symmetry. J. High Energ. Phys. 2016, 93 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2016)093
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2016)093
Keywords
- Duality in Gauge Field Theories
- Supersymmetric gauge theory
- F-Theory
- M-Theory