Picard-Lefschetz decomposition and Cheshire Cat resurgence in 3D $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 2 field theories

Abstract

Abstract We study three dimensional $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 supersymmetric abelian gauge theories with various matter contents living on a squashed sphere. In particular we focus on two problems: firstly we perform a Picard-Lefschetz decomposition of the localised path integral but, due to the absence of a topological theta angle in three dimensions, we find that steepest descent cycles do not permit us to distinguish between contributions to the path- integral coming from (would-be) different topological sectors, for example a vortex from a vortex/anti-vortex. The second problem we analyse is the truncation of all perturbative expansions. Although the partition function can be written as a transseries expansion of perturbative plus non-perturbative terms, due to the supersymmetric nature of the observable studied we have that each perturbative expansion around trivial and non-trivial saddles truncates suggesting that normal resurgence analysis cannot be directly applied. The first problem is solved by complexifying the squashing parameter, which can be thought of as introducing a chemical potential for the global U(1) rotation symmetry, or equivalently an omega deformation. This effectively introduces a hidden “topological angle” into the theory and the path integral can be now decomposed into a sum over different topological sectors via Picard-Lefschetz theory. The second problem is solved by deforming the matter content making manifest the Cheshire Cat resurgence structure of the supersymmetric theory, allowing us to reconstruct non-perturbative information from perturbative data even when these do truncate.