The superconformal index of the (2,0) theory with defects

Abstract

We compute the supersymmetric partition function of the six-dimensional $(2,0)$ theory of type $A_{N-1}$ on $S^1 \times S^5$ in the presence of both codimension two and codimension four defects. We concentrate on a limit of the partition function depending on a single parameter. From the allowed supersymmetric configurations of defects we find a precise match with the characters of irreducible modules of $W_N$ algebras and affine Lie algebras of type $A_{N-1}$.