Indices of M5 and M2 branes at finite $N$ from equivariant volumes, and a new duality

Abstract

We study supersymmetric indices of the 6d $(2,0)$ theory of $N$ M5-branes on toric Sasaki-Einstein five-manifolds. Embedding the background into a local toric Calabi-Yau four-fold and equivariantly integrating the anomaly polynomial yields a finite-$N$ Cardy-limit formula in terms of equivariant characteristic classes. Separately, using equivariant constant maps in topological string theory and higher-derivative supergravity, we derive a finite-$N$ proposal for the superconformal, twisted and spindle indices of $N$ M2-branes probing arbitrary toric Calabi-Yau four-folds. The M2-brane partition functions depend on the same combination of equivariant classes as the M5 result. Motivated by this match, we generalize the M2/M5 duality recently proposed in arxiv:2601.17114 to an infinite class of M2-brane theories by exchanging the worldvolume and transverse geometries of the two brane systems.

6 double-column pages + references and appendix; v2 references added and typos corrected