We consider mass-deformed theories with \mathcal{N}\geq2𝒩≥2 supersymmetry on round and squashed three-spheres. By embedding the supersymmetric backgrounds in extended supergravity we show that at special values of mass deformations the supersymmetry is enhanced on the squashed spheres. When the 3d partition function can be obtained by a limit of a 4d index we also show that for these special mass deformations only the states annihilated by extra supercharges contribute to the index. By using an equivalence between partition functions on squashed spheres and ellipsoids, we explain the recently observed squashing independence of the partition function of mass-deformed ABJ(M) theory on the ellipsoid. We provide further examples of such simplification for various 3d supersymmetric theories.

Abstract:We provide the canonical formulation of double field theory. It is shown that this dynamics is subject to primary and secondary constraints. The Poisson bracket algebra of secondary constraints is shown to close on-shell according to the C-bracket. A systematic way of writing boundary integrals in doubled geometry is given. By including appropriate boundary terms in the double field theory Hamiltonian, expressions for conserved energy and momentum of an asymptotically flat doubled space-time are obtained and applied to a number of solutions.

Abstract:We compute the perturbative partition functions for gauge theories with eight supersymmetries on spheres of dimension d ≤ 5, proving a conjecture by the second author. We apply similar methods to gauge theories with four supersymmetries on spheres with d ≤ 3. The results are valid for non-integer d as well. We further propose an analytic continuation from d = 3 to d = 4 that gives the perturbative partition function for an N = 1 gauge theory. The results are consistent with the free multiplets and the one-loop β-functions for general N = 1 gauge theories. We also consider the analytic continuation of an N = 1 preserving mass deformation of the maximally supersymmetric gauge theory and compare to recent holographic results for N = 1 * super Yang-Mills. We find that the general structure for the real part of the free energy coming from the analytic continuation is consistent with the holographic results.

We analyze the spectrum of the exactly duality and gauge invariant higher-derivative double field theory. While this theory is based on a chiral CFT and does not correspond to a standard string theory, our analysis illuminates a number of issues central in string theory. The full quadratic action is rewritten as a two-derivative theory with additional fields. This allows for a simple analysis of the spectrum, which contains two massive spin-2 ghosts and massive scalars, in addition to the massless fields. Moreover, in this formulation, the massless or tensionless limit $\alpha'\rightarrow \infty$ is non-singular and leads to an enhanced gauge symmetry. We show that the massive modes can be integrated out exactly at the quadratic level, leading to an infinite series of higher-derivative corrections. Finally, we present a ghost-free massive extension of linearized double field theory, which employs a novel mass term for the dilaton and metric.Comment: 28 pages. Minor typos corrected. Matches with the published versio

We give a detailed proof of the conjecture by Hohm and Zwiebach in double field theory. This result implies that their proposal for large gauge transformations in terms of the Jacobian matrix for coordinate transformations is, as required, equivalent to the standard exponential map associated with the generalized Lie derivative along a suitable parameter.Comment: 34 pages, no figure