Dyons and S-duality in N = 4 supersymmetric gauge theory

Abstract

We analyze the spectrum of dyons in N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with gauge group SU(3) spintaneously broken down to U(1) × U(1). The Higgs fields select a natural basis of simple roots. Acting with S-duality on the W-boson states corresponding to simplr roots leads to an orbit of BPS dyon states that are magnetically charged with respect to one of the U(1)'s. The corresponding monopole solutions can be obtained by embedding SU(2) monopoles into SU(3) and the S-duality predictions reduce to the SU(2) case. Acting with S-duality on the W-boson corresponding to a nonsimple root leads to an infinite set of new S-duality predictions. The simplest of these corresponds to the existence of a harmonic form on the moduli space of SU(3) monopoles that have magnetic charge (1,1) with respect to the two U(1)'s. We argue that the moduli space is given by R 3 × (R 1 x M)/ |Z , where M is Euclidean Taub-NUT space, and that the latter admits the appropriate normalizable harmonic two-form. We briefly discuss the generalizations to other gauge groups.