Phases of N=1 Supersymmetric Gauge Theories with Flavors

TL;DR

This paper investigates the different phases and vacua structures of N=1 supersymmetric U(N) gauge theories with flavors, using deformations of N=2 SQCD and developing new analytical techniques.

Contribution

It introduces general methods like addition and multiplication maps to relate vacua of various gauge theories and explores their classical and quantum structures.

Findings

Identification of multiple semiclassical limits for vacua

Development of techniques relating vacua of different theories

Analysis of vacua structures in classical and quantum regimes

Abstract

We explore the phases of N = 1 supersymmetric U(N) gauge theories with fundamental matter that arise as deformations of N = 2 SQCD by the addition of a superpotential for the adjoint chiral multiplet. As the parameters in the superpotential are varied, the vacua of this theory sweep out various branches, which in some cases have multiple semiclassical limits. In such limits, we recover the vacua of various product gauge group theories, with flavors charged under some group factors. We describe in detail the structure of the vacua in both classical and quantum regimes, and develop general techniques such as an addition and a multiplication map which relate vacua of different gauge theories. We also consider possible indices characterizing different branches and potential relationships with matrix models.