Abstract
In this thesis, we study the 4d/2d correspondence of Alday-Gaiotto-Tachikawa, which relates the class of 4-dimensional N=2 gauge theories (theories of class S) to a 2-dimensional conformal field theory. The 4d gauge theories are obtained by compactifying 6-dimensional N=(2, 0) theory of type A, D, E on a Riemann surface C. On the 2-dimensional side, we have Toda theory on the surface C with W-algebra symmetry, which is an extension of the Virasoro symmetry. In particular, the instanton partition function of the 4d gauge theory is reproduced by a conformal/chiral block of Virasoro/W-algebra. We develop techniques to compute the partition functions on 4d and 2d sides, for various gauge groups and matter fields. We generalize the Alday-Gaiotto-Tachikawa 4d/2d correspondence to various cases. First, we study N=2 pure Yang-Mills theory with arbitrary gauge groups, including the exceptional groups. We explicitly construct the corresponding W-algebra currents, and confirm the correspondence holds at 1-instanton level. Second, we study the conformal quiver theory with Sp(1)-SO(4) gauge group. Finally, we study Sicilian gauge theories with trifundamental half-hypermultiplets. We also find that the conformal theories with Sp(1) gauge group and SU(2) gauge group have different instanton partition functions in terms of bare gauge couplings. We show this is an artifact of the renormalization scheme, by explicitly constructing a map between the bare couplings and studying its geometrical interpretations. This demonstrates the scheme independence of renormalization at the non-perturbative level.
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