April 13, 2017
We define "BPS graphs" on punctured Riemann surfaces associated with $A_{N-1}$ theories of class $\mathcal{S}$. BPS graphs provide a bridge between two powerful frameworks for studying the spectrum of BPS states: spectral networks and BPS quivers. They arise from degenerate spectral networks at maximal intersections of walls of marginal stability on the Coulomb branch. While the BPS spectrum is ill-defined at such intersections, a BPS graph captures a useful basis of elementa...
October 30, 2011
Brane Tilings represent one of the largest classes of superconformal theories with known gravity duals in 3+1 and also 2+1 dimensions. They provide a useful link between a large class of quiver gauge theories and their moduli spaces, which are the toric Calabi-Yau (CY) singularities. This thesis includes a discussion of an algorithm that can be used to generate all brane tilings with any given number of superpotential terms. All tilings with at most 8 superpotential terms h...
October 16, 2000
We present simple models which exhibit some of the remarkable features expected to hold for the as yet unknown non-perturbative formulation of string theories. Among these are: (a) the absence of a background or embedding space for the full theory; (b) perturbative ground states (local minima of the action) having the characteristics of spaces of different dimension; (c) duality transformations between large- and small-coupling expansions; and (d) perturbative excitations of ...
June 7, 2004
Lecture notes given at the summer school ``Applications of random matrices to physics", Les Houches, June 2004.
April 13, 2005
We describe a technique which enables one to quickly compute an infinite number of toric geometries and their dual quiver gauge theories. The central object in this construction is a ``brane tiling,'' which is a collection of D5-branes ending on an NS5-brane wrapping a holomorphic curve that can be represented as a periodic tiling of the plane. This construction solves the longstanding problem of computing superpotentials for D-branes probing a singular non-compact toric Cala...
November 16, 2016
Brane tilings are infinite, bipartite, periodic, planar graphs that are dual to quivers. In this paper, we examine the del Pezzo 2 (dP$_2$) quiver and its brane tiling, which arise from the physics literature, in terms of toric mutations on its corresponding cluster. Specifically, we give explicit formulas for all cluster variables generated by toric mutation sequences. Moreover, for each such variable, we associate a subgraph of the dP$_2$ brane tiling to it such that its we...
October 1, 2007
Graphs on surfaces is an active topic of pure mathematics belonging to graph theory. It has also been applied to physics and relates discrete and continuous mathematics. In this paper we present a formal mathematical description of the relation between graph theory and the mathematical physics of discrete string theory. In this description we present problems of the combinatorial world of real importance for graph theorists. The mathematical details of the paper are as follow...
May 9, 2011
We introduce a correspondence between dimer models (and hence superconformal quivers) and the quantum Teichmuller space of the Riemann surfaces associated to them by mirror symmetry. Via the untwisting map, every brane tiling gives rise to a tiling of the Riemann surface with faces surrounding punctures. We explain how to obtain an ideal triangulation by dualizing this tiling. In order to do so, tiling nodes of valence greater than 3 (equivalently superpotential terms of orde...
November 16, 1999
D-brane probes, Hanany-Witten setups and geometrical engineering stand as a trichotomy of the currently fashionable techniques of constructing gauge theories from string theory. Meanwhile, asymptotic freedom, finitude and IR freedom pose as a trichotomy of the beta-function behaviour in quantum field theories. Parallel thereto is a trichotomy in set theory of finite, tame and wild representation types. At the intersection of the above lies the theory of quivers. We briefly re...
January 12, 2012
Reflexive polygons have attracted great interest both in mathematics and in physics. This paper discusses a new aspect of the existing study in the context of quiver gauge theories. These theories are 4d supersymmetric worldvolume theories of D3 branes with toric Calabi-Yau moduli spaces that are conveniently described with brane tilings. We find all 30 theories corresponding to the 16 reflexive polygons, some of the theories being toric (Seiberg) dual to each other. The meso...