M5-branes, 4d gauge theory and 2d CFT

by Yuji Tachikawa (IAS Princeton)

Tuesday 30 Mar 2010, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

TH Theory Conference Room (CERN)

A systematic method to construct N=2 supersymmetric 4d gauge theory by compactifying M5-branes on a Riemann surface was found by Gaiotto last year. It was then noted that Nekrasov's partition function, which is a two-parameter deformation of the low-energy prepotential of the gauge theory, equals the correlation function of Liouville/Toda field theory living on the Riemann surface on which M5-branes are compactified. I would like to illustrate this map through a few explicit examples.