Quiver gauge theories and symplectic singularities

Abstract

Braverman, Finkelberg and Nakajima have recently given a mathematical construction of the Coulomb branches for a large class of 3dN=4 gauge theories, as algebraic varieties with Poisson structure. They conjecture that these varieties have symplectic singularities. We confirm this conjecture for all quiver gauge theories without loops or multiple edges, which in particular implies that the corresponding Coulomb branches have finitely many symplectic leaves and have rational Gorenstein singularities. We also give a criterion for proving that any particular Coulomb branch has symplectic singularities, and discuss the possible extension of our results to quivers with loops and/or multiple edges.