Modularity and 4D-2D spectral equivalences for large-N gauge theories with adjoint matter

TL;DR

This paper extends previous findings showing that the spectra of large-N confining gauge theories, including those with massless adjoint matter, are organized by 2D conformal field theory symmetries, even with added matter fields.

Contribution

It demonstrates that spectral equivalences between large-N gauge theories and 2D conformal field theories persist when massless adjoint matter is included.

Findings

Spectral coincidences hold with adjoint matter included.

Results apply to both thermal and twisted partition functions.

Spectra are organized by 2D conformal symmetries.

Abstract

In recent work, we demonstrated that the confined-phase spectrum of non-supersymmetric pure Yang-Mills theory coincides with the spectrum of the chiral sector of a two-dimensional conformal field theory in the large-$N$ limit. This was done within the tractable setting in which the gauge theory is compactified on a three-sphere whose radius is small compared to the strong length scale. In this paper, we generalize these observations by demonstrating that similar results continue to hold even when massless adjoint matter fields are introduced. These results hold for both thermal and $(-1)^F$-twisted partition functions, and collectively suggest that the spectra of large-$N$ confining gauge theories are organized by the symmetries of two-dimensional conformal field theories.