Phases of N=1 supersymmetric chiral gauge theories

TL;DR

This paper explores the rich phase structure and dualities of N=1 supersymmetric chiral gauge theories with antisymmetric tensors and flavors, revealing novel mixed phases and nonperturbative phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of phase behavior and dualities in chiral gauge theories with superpotential deformations, uncovering new mixed phases and infinite dual families.

Findings

Identification of confinement and chiral symmetry breaking at the origin of moduli space

Discovery of an infinite family of magnetic duals with large gauge groups

Characterization of mixed phases with coexisting sectors

Abstract

We analyze the phases of supersymmetric chiral gauge theories with an antisymmetric tensor and (anti)fundamental flavors, in the presence of a classically marginal superpotential deformation. Varying the number of flavors that appear in the superpotential reveals rich infrared chiral dynamics and novel dualities. The dualities are characterized by an infinite family of magnetic duals with arbitrarily large gauge groups describing the same fixed point, correlated with arbitrarily large classical global symmetries that are truncated nonperturbatively. At the origin of moduli space, these theories exhibit a phase with confinement and chiral symmetry breaking, an interacting nonabelian Coulomb phase, and phases where an interacting sector coexists with a sector that either s-confines or is in a free magnetic phase. Properties of these intriguing "mixed phases" are studied in detail using duality and a-maximization, and the presence of superpotential interactions provides further insights into their formation.