\(S\)-duality of boundary conditions in \({\mathcal N}=4\) super Yang-Mills theory (Q1958486)

The authors develop methods for analyzing S-duality of supersymmetric boundary conditions in \(N=4\) super Yang-Mills theory. They start with review of boundary conditions in \(U(N)\)-gauge theory that can be constructed using D3-brains, D5-brains and NS5-brains of type IIB supersymmetric theory. The topic is closely related to IR dynamics in three dimensions. An important mirror symmetric class of three-dimensional theories is considered and their IR dynamics is studied. The relation between the mirror symmetry of three-dimensions gauge theory and S-duality is discussed. A generalization of these results to the theory with any compact gauge group \(G\) is considered. The authors analysis quivers associated with three dimensional gauge theory with orthogonasl and symplectic gauge groups and describe their special properties. In the most part of the paper, the authors consider the basic electro-magnetic duality operation \(S\) and not the complete duality group SL\((2, \mathbb Z)\). The last chapter is devoted to investigation of this duality group and its action on half-BPS boundary conditions. As an application, they give a quiver-like description of the low energy effective field theory that describes the interection of D3 brains with a \((p,q)\)-fivebraine. This description uses Chern-Simons couplings with \(N=4\) supersymmetry. The authors remarks that such a description has been a longstanbding problem.