IAS Special High Energy Theory Seminar

Abstract: Higgs branches in theories with 8 supercharges change as one tunes the gauge coupling to critical values.

This talk will focus on six dimensional (0,1) supersymmetric theories in studying the different phenomena associated with such a change. Based on a Type IIA brane system, involving NS5 branes, D6 branes and D8 branes, one can derive a "magnetic quiver” which enables the construction of the Higgs branch using a “magnetic construction” or as a more commonly known object “3d N=4 Coulomb branch”.

Interestingly enough, the magnetic construction opens a window to a new set of Higgs branches which were not available using the well studied method of hyperkähler quotient.

It turns out that exceptional global symmetries are fairly common in the magnetic construction, and few examples will be shown. In all such cases there are strongly coupled theories where Lagrangian description fails, and the magnetic construction is helpful in finding properties of the theory.

Each Higgs branch can be characterized by a phase diagram which describes the different sets of massless fields around vacua. We will use such diagrams to study how Higgs branches change.

If time permits we will show an interesting exceptional sequence consisting of SU(3) — G2 — SO(7).