The threefold way to quantum periods: WKB, TBA equations and q-Painlevé

Abstract

We show that TBA equations defined by the BPS spectrum of $5d$ $\mathcal{N}=1$ $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills on $S^1\times {\mathbb{R}}^4$ encode the q-Painlevé III${}_3$ equation. We find a fine-tuned stratum in the physical moduli space of the theory where solutions to TBA equations can be obtained exactly, and verify that they agree with the algebraic solutions to q-Painlevé. Switching from the physical moduli space to that of stability conditions, we identify a one-parameter deformation of the fine-tuned stratum, where the general solution of the q-Painlevé equation in terms of dual instanton partition functions continues to provide explicit TBA solutions. Motivated by these observations, we propose a further extensions of the range of validity of this correspondence, under a suitable identification of moduli. As further checks of our proposal, we study the behavior of exact WKB quantum periods for the quantum curve of local ${\mathbb{P}}^1\times {\mathbb{P}}^1$.

39 Pages + 2 Appendices, 11 Figures v2: Added a new stability condition and consequent several changes to Sections 2 and 5 and addition of Figure 5. Sharpened and revised the conclusions. Fixed some typos

Cited by in corpus (1)

• On the resurgent structure of quantum periods