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Bootstrapping the superconformal index with surface defects

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Abstract

The analytic properties of the \( \mathcal{N}=2 \) superconformal index are given a physical interpretation in terms of certain BPS surface defects, which arise as the IR limit of supersymmetric vortices. The residue of the index at a pole in flavor fugacity is interpreted as the index of a superconformal field theory without this flavor symmetry, but endowed with an additional surface defect. The residue can be efficiently extracted by acting on the index with a difference operator of Ruijsenaars-Schneider type. By imposing the associativity constraints of S-duality, we are then able to evaluate the index of all generalized quiver theories of type A, for generic values of the three superconformal fugacities, with or without surface defects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 2Y5, Canada

    Davide Gaiotto

  2. Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, 08540, USA

    Davide Gaiotto & Shlomo S. Razamat

  3. C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-3840, USA

    Leonardo Rastelli

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  1. Davide Gaiotto
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Gaiotto, D., Rastelli, L. & Razamat, S.S. Bootstrapping the superconformal index with surface defects. J. High Energ. Phys. 2013, 22 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2013)022

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