Defects and Phases of Higher Rank Abelian GLSMs

TL;DR

This paper constructs supersymmetry-protected defects in higher rank abelian GLSMs to describe phase transitions and D-brane transport, using an abstract, homotopy-based approach applicable to both anomalous and non-anomalous models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, abstract method for constructing phase transition defects in higher rank abelian GLSMs that aligns with homotopy classes of phase paths.

Findings

Constructed defects encode phase transitions in GLSMs.

Defects facilitate D-brane transport across phases.

Method applies to both anomalous and non-anomalous GLSMs.

Abstract

We construct defects describing the transition between different phases of gauged linear sigma models with higher rank abelian gauge groups, as well as defects embedding these phases into the GLSMs. Our construction refers entirely to the sector protected by B-type supersymmetry, decoupling the gauge sector. It relies on an abstract characterization of such transition defects and does not involve an actual perturbative analysis. It turns out that the choices that are required to characterize consistent transition defects match with the homotopy classes of paths between different phases. Our method applies to non-anomalous as well as anomalous GLSMs, and we illustrate both cases with examples. This includes the GLSM associated to the resolution of the $A_N$ singularity and one describing the entire parameter space of $N = 2$ minimal models, in particular, the relevant flows between them. Via fusion with boundary conditions, the defects we construct yield functors describing the transport of D-branes on parameter space. We find that our results match with known results on D-brane transport.