Seminar - Physics Department

In the past few years, there has been a significant improvement in our under- standing of four-dimensional N = 2 superconformal field theories (SCFTs), particularly the “class S” theories, which are constructed by compactifying the six-dimensional (2, 0) theory of type g on a punctured Riemann surface Σ. Interestingly, a considerable amount of knowledge has been gained about these strongly coupled N = 2 SCFTs without requiring any knowledge of a Lagrangian description. However, this situation is changing, and in this talk, I will present a new class of Lagrangian constructions that use N = 1 SCFTs and S-duality to build Lagrangians for a class of interacting N = 2 SCFTs. I will start by reviewing the use of geometric engineering brane tiling techniques to construct SCFTs and explain how to read the N = 1 gauge theory from brane tiling. Then, I will discuss the simplest case of the construction of Lagrangians for N = 2 theories, which arises from placing D3-branes at an orientifolded C₂/Z₂ singularity. This allows us to obtain Lagrangian descriptions for all R_2,k  "class S” theories. Finally, I will conclude with a summary of our results and future directions.

View this event on the Physics Department website