Topological anti-topological fusion in four-dimensional superconformal field theories

Abstract

We present some new exact results for general four-dimensional superconformal field theories. We derive differential equations governing the coupling constant dependence of chiral primary correlators. For $$ \mathcal{N} = 2 $$ theories we show that the Zamolodchikov metric on the moduli space and the operator mixing of chiral primaries are quasi-topological quantities and constrained by holomorphy. The equations that we find are the four-dimensional analogue of the tt* equations in two-dimensions, discovered by the method of “topological anti-topological fusion” by Cecotti and Vafa. Our analysis relies on conformal perturbation theory and the superconformal Ward identities and does not use a topological twist.