6D SCFTs and phases of 5D theories
Michele Zotto (Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, U.S.A.); Jonathan Heckman (Department of Physics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, U.S.A.); David Morrison (Department of Physics, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, U.S.A., Department of Mathematics, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, U.S.A.)
Starting from 6D superconformal field theories (SCFTs) realized via F-theory, we show how reduction on a circle leads to a uniform perspective on the phase structure of the resulting 5D theories, and their possible conformal fixed points. Using the correspon-dence between F-theory reduced on a circle and M-theory on the corresponding elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefold, we show that each 6D SCFT with minimal supersymmetry directly reduces to a collection of between one and four 5D SCFTs. Additionally, we find that in most cases, reduction of the tensor branch of a 6D SCFT yields a 5D generalization of a quiver gauge theory. These two reductions of the theory often correspond to different phases in the 5D theory which are in general connected by a sequence of flop transitions in the extended Kähler cone of the Calabi-Yau threefold. We also elaborate on the structure of the resulting conformal fixed points, and emergent flavor symmetries, as realized by M-theory on a canonical singularity.