2024/07/15 by Baptiste Filoche, Filoche, Baptiste, Stefan Hohenegger +3
Computer Science · Mathematics · #Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory #FOS: Physical sciences #Geometric and Algebraic Topology #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Mathematical Physics (math-ph) #Topological and Geometric Data Analysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2407.11164
openalex publication_date 2024/07/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Little Strings are a type of non-gravitational quantum theories that contain extended degrees of freedom, but behave like ordinary Quantum Field Theories at low energies. A particular class of such theories in six dimensions is engineered as the world-volume theory of an M5-brane on a circle that probes a transverse orbifold geometry. Its low energy limit is a supersymmetric gauge theory that is described by a quiver in the shape of the Dynkin diagram of the affine extension of an ADE-group. While the so-called \widehatA-type Little String Theories (LSTs) are very well studied, much less is known about the \widehatD-type, where for example the Seiberg-Witten curve (SWC) is only known in the case of the \widehatD4 theory. In this work, we provide a general construction of this curve for arbitrary \widehatDM that respects all symmetries and dualities of the LST and is compatible with lower-dimensional results in the literature. For M=4 our construction reproduces the same curve as previously obtained by other methods. The form in which we cast the SWC for generic \widehatDM allows to study the behaviour of the LST under modular transformations and provides insights into a dual formulation as a circular quiver gauge theory with nodes of Sp(M-4) and SO(2M).