N=1 RG Flows, Product Groups, and a-Maximization

TL;DR

This paper investigates intricate IR phenomena and dualities in N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories with product groups, revealing how RG flows can drastically alter couplings and exploring dualities via a-maximization.

Contribution

It introduces new IR phenomena related to RG flows in product group theories and analyzes dualities using a-maximization, including Landau-Ginzburg superpotential deformations.

Findings

RG flows can invert IR behavior of couplings with small initial values.

Dual gauge theories with superconformal windows are identified.

Exact results are obtained using a-maximization.

Abstract

We explore new IR phenomena and dualities, arising for product groups, in the context of N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories. The RG running of the multiple couplings can radically affect each other. For example, an otherwise IR interacting coupling can be driven to be instead IR free by an arbitrarily small, but non-zero, initial value of another coupling. Or an otherwise IR free coupling can be driven to be instead IR interacting by an arbitrarily small non-zero initial value of another coupling. We explore these and other phenomena in N=1 examples, where exact results can be obtained using a-maximization. We also explore the various possible dual gauge theories, e.g. by dualizing one gauge group with the other treated as a weakly gauged flavor symmetry, along with previously proposed duals for the theories deformed by A_k-type Landau-Ginzburg superpotentials. We note that this latter duality, and all similar duality examples, always have non-empty superconformal windows, within which both the electric and dual A_k superpotentials are relevant.