M2-brane surface operators and gauge theory dualities in Toda

Abstract

We give a microscopic two dimensional $\mathcal{N}=(2,2)$ gauge theory description of arbitrary M2-branes ending on $N_f$ M5-branes wrapping a punctured Riemann surface. These realize surface operators in four dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ field theories. We show that the expectation value of these surface operators on the sphere is captured by a Toda CFT correlation function in the presence of an additional degenerate vertex operator labelled by a representation $\mathcal{R}$ of $SU(N_f)$, which also labels M2-branes ending on M5-branes. We prove that symmetries of Toda CFT correlators provide a geometric realization of dualities between two dimensional gauge theories, including $\mathcal{N}=(2,2)$ analogues of Seiberg and Kutasov--Schwimmer dualities. As a bonus, we find new explicit conformal blocks, braiding matrices, and fusion rules in Toda CFT.

70 pages + appendices. v2: references added. v3: correct theta angle shifts to match the version published in 2016

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