Title: Phases Of Adjoint QCD$$_3$$ And Dualities

Abstract

We study 2+1 dimensional gauge theories with a Chern-Simons term and a fermion in the adjoint representation. We apply general considerations of symmetries, anomalies, and renormalization group flows to determine the possible phases of the theory as a function of the gauge group, the Chern-Simons level k $k$ , and the fermion mass. We propose an inherently quantum mechanical phase of adjoint QCD with small enough k $k$ , where the infrared is described by a certain Topological Quantum Field Theory (TQFT). For a special choice of the mass, the theory has {\cal N}=1 supersymmetry. There this TQFT is accompanied by a massless Majorana fermion – a Goldstino signaling spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. Our analysis leads us to conjecture a number of new infrared fermion-fermion dualities involving SU $SU$ , SO $SO$ , and Sp $Sp$ gauge theories. It also leads us to suggest a phase diagram of SO/Sp $SO/Sp$ gauge theories with a fermion in the traceless symmetric/antisymmetric tensor representation of the gauge group.

Authors:

Gomis, Jaume ^[1]; Komargodski, Zohar ^[2]; Seiberg, Nathan ^[3]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Perimeter Institute
2. Weizmann Institute of Science, Stony Brook University
3. Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University

Publication Date:

2018-07-23

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE

OSTI Identifier:

1461211

Grant/Contract Number:  

[SC0009988]

Resource Type:

Published Article

Journal Name:

SciPost Physics Proceedings

Additional Journal Information:

[Journal Name: SciPost Physics Proceedings Journal Volume: 5 Journal Issue: 1]; Journal ID: ISSN 2542-4653

Publisher:

Stichting SciPost

Country of Publication:

Netherlands

Language:

English