Phases of N=1 theories and factorization of Seiberg-Witten curves

TL;DR

This paper reviews the vacua structure of N=2 theories broken to N=1 and explores how Seiberg-Witten curve factorization reveals dual descriptions and counts of vacua in supersymmetric gauge theories.

Contribution

It introduces the use of exact curve factorization to analyze vacua and dualities in N=1 theories derived from N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories.

Findings

Identification of dual descriptions of vacua

Counting of connected domains in N=1 vacua space

Link between curve factorization and vacuum structure

Abstract

In this talk I review the structure of vacua of N=2 theories broken down to N=1 and it's link with factorization of Seiberg-Witten curves. After an introduction to the structure of vacua in various supersymmetric gauge theories, I discuss the use of the exact factorization solution to identify different dual descriptions of the same physics and to count the number of connected domains in the space of N=1 vacua.