More on gauge theory and geometric Langlands (Q1701017)

This is a follow-up exposé to the 2007 paper of Kapustin and the author that related geometric Langlands program to electric-magnetic duality (\(S\)-duality) in 4D \(\mathcal{N}=4\) super Yang-Mills. The idea was to consider boundary conditions in that theory in the context of compactification to two dimensions, the action of \(S\)-duality on them and the behavior of supersymmetric line operators near the boundary. Subsequent developments included ramification, branes supported on singularities , and relations to Khovanov homology. The main goal of this paper is to illustrate directly, without duality, why certain A-branes on the moduli space of Higgs bundles \(\mathcal{M}_H\) are ``magnetic eigenbranes of t'Hooft operators'', as the duality predicts. The Langlands correspondence relates B-branes on \(\mathcal{M}_H(G)\) and the action of Wilson loops on them to A-branes on \(\mathcal{M}_H(G^{\vee})\) and the action of t'Hooft operators on them, where \( G^{\vee}\) is the Langlands dual to a compact Lie group. The A-branes in question are rank \(1\), supported on a fiber of Hitchin fibration, and dual to zero branes. This is done in simplest cases where the gauge groups and the t'Hooft operators are such that the technicalities can be avoided. Nearly half of the paper reviews background material on Higgs bundles and the Hitchin fibration, and another quarter on the t'Hooft operators, eigenbranes and Hecke transformations. Still, the reader needs to be familiar with parts of the original paper to follow this one, its notation is also mostly retained.