Fermi gas approach to general rank theories and quantum curves

TL;DR

This paper extends the Fermi gas approach to rank-deformed 3D superconformal Chern-Simons theories, revealing factorization properties and quantum curve interpretations that facilitate understanding dualities and complex theories.

Contribution

It introduces a factorization of matrix models for rank-deformed theories and demonstrates their relation to quantum curves, advancing the Fermi gas method for broader classes of theories.

Findings

Factorization of matrix models depending on relative ranks

Equivalence of partition functions for dual theories via Hanany-Witten transition

Density matrices as quantum curves in rank-deformed cases

Abstract

It is known that matrix models computing the partition functions of three-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ superconformal Chern-Simons theories described by circular quiver diagrams can be written as the partition functions of ideal Fermi gases when all the nodes have equal ranks. We extend this approach to rank deformed theories. The resulting matrix models factorize into factors depending only on the relative ranks in addition to the Fermi gas factors. We find that this factorization plays a critical role in showing the equality of the partition functions of dual theories related by the Hanany-Witten transition. Furthermore, we show that the inverses of the density matrices of the ideal Fermi gases can be simplified and regarded as quantum curves as in the case without rank deformations. We also comment on four nodes theories using our results.