The general M5-brane superconformal index

TL;DR

This paper computes the superconformal index for the 6d (2,0) theory with four chemical potentials, matching supergravity predictions and revealing N^3 scaling of Casimir energy, with implications for (1,0) theories.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic method to calculate the superconformal index for 6d (2,0) theories, connecting gauge theory indices with supergravity results and exploring (1,0) theories.

Findings

Index matches supergravity predictions at large N.

Reveals N^3 scaling of Casimir energy.

Suggests a systematic approach for (1,0) superconformal indices.

Abstract

We calculate and study the general superconformal index for the 6d U(N) (2,0) theory with four chemical potentials, from the indices of gauge theories on CP^2 x R. Our index agrees with the large N supergravity index on AdS_7 x S^4 at low energies, and also yields the negative 'Casimir energy' with an N^3 scaling which was recently calculated from a QFT on S^5. Our approach also suggests a systematic study of the (1,0) superconformal indices.