Mass Deformations of Brane Brick Models

TL;DR

This paper studies mass deformations in 2d (0,2) gauge theories linked to toric Calabi-Yau 4-folds, exploring their geometric and physical implications, including symmetry breaking and degrees of freedom.

Contribution

It introduces a class of mass deformations connecting different gauge theories and analyzes their effects on geometry, symmetry, and degrees of freedom in the context of brane brick models.

Findings

Deformation relates different toric Calabi-Yau 4-folds and gauge theories.

Volume of Sasaki-Einstein manifold correlates with degrees of freedom.

Deformations induce symmetry breaking patterns.

Abstract

We investigate a class of mass deformations that connect pairs of 2d (0,2) gauge theories associated to different toric Calabi-Yau 4-folds. These deformations are generalizations to 2d of the well-known Klebanov-Witten deformation relating the 4d gauge theories for the C^2/Z_2 x C orbifold and the conifold. We investigate various aspects of these deformations, including their connection to brane brick models and the relation between the change in the geometry and the pattern of symmetry breaking triggered by the deformation. We also explore how the volume of the Sasaki-Einstein 7-manifold at the base of the Calabi-Yau 4-fold varies under deformation, which leads us to conjecture that it quantifies the number of degrees of freedom of the gauge theory and its dependence on the RG scale.