Twisted compactifications of 3d $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 theories and conformal blocks

Abstract

Abstract Three-dimensional $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 supersymmetric quantum field theories admit two topological twists, the Rozansky-Witten twist and its mirror. Either twist can be used to define a supersymmetric compactification on a Riemann surface and a corresponding space of supersymmetric ground states. These spaces of ground states can play an interesting role in the Geometric Langlands program. We propose a description of these spaces as conformal blocks for certain non-unitary Vertex Operator Algebras and test our conjecture in some important examples. The two VOAs can be constructed respectively from a UV Lagrangian description of the $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 theory or of its mirror. We further conjecture that the VOAs associated to an $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 SQFT inherit properties of the theory which only emerge in the IR, such as enhanced global symmetries. Thus knowledge of the VOAs should allow one to compute the spaces of supersymmetric ground states for a theory coupled to supersymmetric background connections for the full symmetry group of the IR SCFT. In particular, we propose a conformal field theory description of the spaces of ground states for the T[SU(N)] theories. These theories play a role of S-duality kernel in maximally supersymmetric SU(N) gauge theory and thus the corresponding spaces of supersymmetric ground states should provide a kernel for the Geometric Langlands duality for special unitary groups.