On N=2 SUSY gauge theories and integrable systems

Five and six dimensional SUSY gauge theories, with one or two compactified directions, are discussed. The 5d theories with the matter hypermultiplets in the fundamental representation are associated with the twisted $XXZ$ spin chain, while the group product case with the bi-fundamental matter corresponds to the higher rank spin chains. The Riemann surfaces for $6d$ theories with fundamental matter and two compact directions are proposed to correspond to the $XYZ$ spin chain b...

The effective action of N=2 Yang-Mills theory with adjoint matter is shown to be governed by an integrable spin model with spectral parameter on an elliptic curve. We sketch a route to deriving this effective dynamics from the underlying Yang-Mills theory. Natural generalizations of this structure to all N=2 models, and to string theory, are suggested.

This is the first article in the collection of reviews "Exact results on N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories", ed. J. Teschner. It describes how large families of field theories with N=2 supersymmetry can be described by means of Lagrangian formulations, or by compactification from the six-dimensional theory with (2,0) supersymmetry on spaces of the form $M^4 \times C$, with C being a Riemann surface. The class of theories that can be obtained in this way is called class $\cal ...

We use the matrix model to describe the N=2 SO(N)/Sp(N) supersymmetric gauge theories with massive hypermultiplets in the fundamental representation. By taking the tree level superpotential perturbation made of a polynomial of a scalar chiral multiplet, the effective action for the eigenvalues of chiral multiplet can be obtained. By varying this action with respect to an eigenvalue, a loop equation is obtained. By analyzing this equation, we derive the Seiberg-Witten curve wi...

Linear recursion relations for the instanton corrections to the effective prepotential are derived for two cases of N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories; the first case with an arbitrary number of hypermultiplets in the fundamental representation of an arbitrary classical gauge group, and the second case with one hypermultiplet in the adjoint representation of SU(N). The construction for both cases proceed from the Seiberg-Witten solutions and the renormalization group type equa...

We study exact effective superpotentials of four-dimensional {\cal N} = 2 supersymmetric gauge theories with gauge group U(N) and various amounts of fundamental matter on R^3 x S^1, broken to {\cal N} = 1 by turning on a classical superpotential for the adjoint scalar. On general grounds these superpotentials can easily be constructed once we identify a suitable set of coordinates on the moduli space of the gauge theory. These coordinates have been conjectured to be the phase...

We present a series of four self-contained lectures on the following topics: (I) An introduction to 4-dimensional 1\leq N \leq 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, including particle and field contents, N=1 and N=2 superfield methods and the construction of general invariant Lagrangians; (II) A review of holomorphicity and duality in N=2 super-Yang-Mills, of Seiberg-Witten theory and its formulation in terms of Riemann surfaces; (III) An introduction to mechanical Hamilt...

We describe the low-energy dynamics of N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories with the Dynkin index of matter fields less than or equal to the Dynkin index of the adjoint plus two. We explain what kinds of nonperturbative phenomena take place in this class of supersymmetric gauge theories.

We briefly review the Whitham hierarchies and their applications to integrable systems of the Seiberg-Witten type. The simplest example of the N=2 supersymmetric SU(2) pure gauge theory is considered in detail and the corresponding Whitham solutions are found explicitely.

A new method to obtain the Picard-Fuchs equations of effective $N = 2$ supersymmetric gauge theories in 4 dimensions is developed. It includes both pure super Yang-Mills and supersymmetric gauge theories with massless matter hypermultiplets. It applies to all classical gauge groups, and directly produces a decoupled set of second-order, partial differential equations satisfied by the period integrals of the Seiberg-Witten differential along the 1-cycles of the algebraic curve...