\(\mathcal{N} = 2^*\) gauge theory, free fermions on the torus and Painlevé VI (Q2191177)

The aim of this paper is to study the extension of Painlevé-gauge theory correspondence to circular quivers by focusing on the special case of \(\mathrm{SU}(2)\; \mathcal{N}=2^*\) theory. The authors show that the Nekrasov-Okounkov partition function of this gauge theory provides an explicit combinatorial expression and a Fredholm determinant formula for the tau-function describing isomonodromic deformations of \(\mathrm{SL}_2\) flat connections on the one-punctured torus. This is achieved by reformulating the Riemann-Hilbert problem associated to the latter in terms of chiral conformal blocks of a free-fermionic algebra. This viewpoint provides the exact solution of the renormalization group flow of the \(\mathrm{SU}(2)\; \mathcal{N}=2^*\) theory on a self-dual-background and, in the Seiberg-Witten limit, an elegant relation between the IR and UV gauge couplings. The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 the authors recall known results on the two-sphere. In Section 3 they illustrate the new results obtained for the one-punctured torus case, namely they discuss the free fermion realization of the Riemann-Hilbert problem kernel and the corresponding isomonodromic tau function. In Section 4 they provide a Fredholm determinant formula for the latter and discuss gauge theory/topological string implications of their results. The conclusions are reported in Section 5. The remaining third of the paper consists of technical appendices.