Wilson loops and chiral correlators on squashed spheres

Abstract

After a very brief recollection of how my scientific collaboration with Ugo started, in this talk I will present some recent results obtained with localization: the deformed gauge theory partition function $Z(\vec\tau|q)$ and the expectation value of circular Wilson loops $W$ on a squashed four-sphere will be computed. The partition function is deformed by turning on $\tau_J \,{\rm tr} \, \Phi^J$ interactions with $\Phi$ the ${\cal N}=2$ superfield. For the ${\cal N}=4$ theory SUSY gauge theory exact formulae for $Z$ and $W$ in terms of an underlying $U(N)$ interacting matrix model can be derived thus replacing the free Gaussian model describing the undeformed ${\cal N}=4$ theory. These results will be then compared with those obtained with the dual CFT according to the AGT correspondence. The interactions introduced previously are in fact related to the insertions of commuting integrals of motion in the four-point CFT correlator and the chiral correlators are expressed as $\tau$-derivatives of the gauge theory partition function on a finite $\Omega$-background.