Kac-Moody algebras from M5-giants

Abstract

We examine the giant graviton expansions of the Higgs indices for the 3d $\mathcal{N}=4$ $U(N)$ ADHM theories with $l$ fundamental hypermultiplets. The indices for the M5-brane giant gravitons of wrapping number $m$ appearing in the expansions consist of the contributions that generalize the characters of the W-algebra $\mathcal{W}(\mathfrak{gl}(m))$ and those which realize the characters of the affine Kac-Moody algebras of type $A_{l-1}$. Also we confirm that the inverse giant graviton expansions of the resulting M5-brane indices consistently reproduce the Higgs indices.

55 pages, v2: references added