Five-dimensional gauge theories and the local B-model

Abstract

We propose an effective framework for computing the prepotential of the topological B-model on a class of local Calabi–Yau geometries related to the circle compactification of five-dimensional mathcal {N}=1 super Yang–Mills theory with simple gauge group. In the simply laced case, we construct Picard–Fuchs operators from the Dubrovin connection on the Frobenius manifolds associated with the extended affine Weyl groups of type mathrm {ADE}. In general, we propose a purely algebraic construction of Picard–Fuchs ideals from a canonical subring of the space of regular functions on the ramification locus of the Seiberg–Witten curve, encompassing non-simply laced cases as well. We offer several precision tests of our proposal for simply laced cases by comparing with the gauge theory prepotentials obtained from the K-theoretic blow-up equations, finding perfect agreement. Whenever there is more than one candidate Seiberg-Witten curve for non-simply laced gauge groups in the literature, we employ our framework to verify which one agrees with the K-theoretic blow-up equations.