Phases Of Adjoint QCD$$_3$$ And Dualities

Journal Article · 23 July 2018 · SciPost Physics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21468/SciPostPhys.5.1.007 · OSTI ID:1461211

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

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

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.

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0009988
• OSTI ID: 1461211
• Journal Information: SciPost Physics, Journal Name: SciPost Physics Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 5; ISSN 2542-4653
• Publisher: Stichting SciPostCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: Netherlands
• Language: English