Painlevé Kernels and Surface Defects at Strong Coupling

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: François, Matijn, Grassi, Alba
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author François, Matijn
Grassi, Alba
author_facet François, Matijn
Grassi, Alba
contents It is well established that the spectral analysis of canonically quantized four-dimensional Seiberg-Witten curves can be systematically studied via the Nekrasov-Shatashvili functions. In this paper, we explore another aspect of the relation between $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions and operator theory. Specifically, we study an example of an integral operator associated with Painlevé equations and whose spectral traces are related to correlation functions of the 2d Ising model. This operator does not correspond to a canonically quantized Seiberg-Witten curve, but its kernel can nevertheless be interpreted as the density matrix of an ideal Fermi gas. Adopting the approach of Tracy and Widom, we provide an explicit expression for its eigenfunctions via an $\mathrm{O}(2)$ matrix model. We then show that these eigenfunctions are computed by surface defects in $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ super Yang-Mills in the self-dual phase of the $Ω$-background. Our result also yields a strong coupling expression for such defects which resums the instanton expansion. Even though we focus on one concrete example, we expect these results to hold for a larger class of operators arising in the context of isomonodromic deformation equations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_09262
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Painlevé Kernels and Surface Defects at Strong Coupling
François, Matijn
Grassi, Alba
High Energy Physics - Theory
Mathematical Physics
Spectral Theory
It is well established that the spectral analysis of canonically quantized four-dimensional Seiberg-Witten curves can be systematically studied via the Nekrasov-Shatashvili functions. In this paper, we explore another aspect of the relation between $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions and operator theory. Specifically, we study an example of an integral operator associated with Painlevé equations and whose spectral traces are related to correlation functions of the 2d Ising model. This operator does not correspond to a canonically quantized Seiberg-Witten curve, but its kernel can nevertheless be interpreted as the density matrix of an ideal Fermi gas. Adopting the approach of Tracy and Widom, we provide an explicit expression for its eigenfunctions via an $\mathrm{O}(2)$ matrix model. We then show that these eigenfunctions are computed by surface defects in $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ super Yang-Mills in the self-dual phase of the $Ω$-background. Our result also yields a strong coupling expression for such defects which resums the instanton expansion. Even though we focus on one concrete example, we expect these results to hold for a larger class of operators arising in the context of isomonodromic deformation equations.
title Painlevé Kernels and Surface Defects at Strong Coupling
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
Mathematical Physics
Spectral Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.09262