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On instantons as Kaluza-Klein modes of M5-branes

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Abstract

Instantons and W-bosons in 5d maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory arise from a circle compactification of the 6d (2,0) theory as Kaluza-Klein modes and winding self-dual strings, respectively. We study an index which counts BPS instantons with electric charges in Coulomb and symmetric phases. We first prove the existence of unique threshold bound state of (noncommutative) U(1) instantons for any instanton number, and also show that charged instantons in the Coulomb phase correctly give the degeneracy of SU(2) self-dual strings. By studying SU(N) self-dual strings in the Coulomb phase, we find novel momentum-carrying degrees on the worldsheet. The total number of these degrees equals the anomaly coefficient of SU(N) (2,0) theory. We finally show that our index can be used to study the symmetric phase of this theory, and provide an interpretation as the superconformal index of the sigma model on instanton moduli space.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy & Center for Theoretical Physics, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-747, Korea

    Hee-Cheol Kim & Seok Kim

  2. School of Physics, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Seoul, 130-722, Korea

    Hee-Cheol Kim, Eunkyung Koh & Kimyeong Lee

  3. DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge University, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, United Kingdom

    Sungjay Lee

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  1. Hee-Cheol Kim
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ArXiv ePrint: 1110.2175

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Kim, HC., Kim, S., Koh, E. et al. On instantons as Kaluza-Klein modes of M5-branes. J. High Energ. Phys. 2011, 31 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP12(2011)031

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