Quantum Mechanics of Lowest Landau Level Derived from N=4 SYM with Chemical Potential

TL;DR

This paper derives the lowest Landau level effective theory from N=4 super-Yang-Mills with chemical potential, revealing its structure as a holomorphic matrix quantum mechanics and analyzing state degeneracies and energy corrections.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the low energy limit of N=4 SYM with chemical potential is a holomorphic Landau level system and solves it using operator methods and perturbation theory.

Findings

States are half-BPS when chemical potential is near the scalar mass.

Degeneracy of the lowest Landau level is lifted when chemical potential is below the mass.

One-loop corrections cause mixing of states with the same R-charge.

Abstract

The low energy effective theory of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory on S^3 with an R-symmetry chemical potential is shown to be the lowest Landau level system. This theory is a holomorphic complex matrix quantum mechanics. When the value of the chemical potential is not far below the mass of the scalars, the states of the effective theory consist only of the half-BPS states. The theory is solved by the operator method and by utilizing the lowest Landau level projection prescription for the value of the chemical potential less than or equal to the mass of the scalars. When the chemical potential is below the mass, we find that the degeneracy of the lowest Landau level is lifted and the energies of the states are computed. The one-loop correction to the effective potential is computed for the commuting fields and treated as a perturbation to the tree level quantum mechanics. We find that the perturbation term has non-vanishing matrix elements that mix the states with the same R-charge.