Bulk Witten Indices from D=10 Yang Mills Integrals

TL;DR

This paper calculates bulk Witten indices for D=10 Yang-Mills integrals using BRST deformation, revealing discrepancies with previous assumptions about ground states and boundary terms.

Contribution

It provides new calculations of bulk Witten indices for specific groups, challenging existing hypotheses about ground state counts and boundary term signs.

Findings

Calculated indices for groups of rank 4 and 5

Discrepancies with previous partition function assumptions

Boundary term signs do not always match expectations

Abstract

Values for the bulk Witten indices for D=10 Yang-Mills integrals for some regular simple groups of rank 4 and 5 are calculated by employing the BRST deformation technique by Moore, Nekrasov and Shatashvili. The results cannot be reconciled with the double assumption that the number of normalizable ground states is given by certain simple partition functions given by Kac and Smilga as well as that the corresponding boundary term is always negative.