6d instanton strings from wrapped D3 branes

by Dr Guglielmo Lockhart (Univ. Amsterdam)

Thursday 26 Jan 2017, 11:30 → 12:30 Europe/Rome

0M03 (Dipartimento di Fisica)

In this talk, I will discuss a distinguished class of six-dimensional superconformal field theories (SCFTs) which can be characterized as possessing a single tensor multiplet, simple gauge group G, and no matter. Vanishing of gauge anomalies constrains G to be one of the following groups: A2,D4,F4,E6,E7,E8. On their tensor branch, the BPS spectrum of these SCFTs includes strings that couple to the tensor multiplet. These strings simultaneously play the role of instantons of the gauge group G, and are described by interacting 2d N=(0,4) CFTs. I will argue that these CFTs are given by twisted compactifications of 4d N=2 SCFTs describing D3 branes probing exotic seven-branes. I will use this to derive various properties of the 2d CFTs, and will show how one can exploit modularity to compute the elliptic genus of one G-instanton string.