Exact results in D = 2 supersymmetric gauge theories

A bstract We compute exactly the partition function of two dimensional N = (2, 2) gauge theories on S 2 and show that it admits two dual descriptions: either as an integral over the Coulomb branch or as a sum over vortex and anti-vortex excitations on the Higgs branches of the theory. We further demonstrate that correlation functions in two dimensional Liouville/Toda CFT compute the S 2 partition function for a class of N = (2 , 2) gauge theories, thereby uncovering novel modular properties in two dimensional gauge theories. Some of these gauge theories flow in the infrared to Calabi-Yau sigma models — such as the conifold — and the topology changing flop transition is realized as crossing symmetry in Liouville/Toda CFT. Evidence for Seiberg duality in two dimensions is exhibited by demonstrating that the partition function of conjectured Seiberg dual pairs are the same.