Lecturer: Prof. Misha Shifman
Affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy
University of Minnesota
Abstract:
After a brief review of non-Abelian
vortices discovered in 2003 I focus on a
recent unexpected finding. In a class of
non-Abelian solitonic vortex strings
supported in certain N=2 super-Yang-
Mills theories a vortexwas discovered
which behaves as a critical fundamental
string. The Polchinski-Strominger criterion
of the ultraviolet completeness was used.
The appropriate four-dimensional bulk
theory was identified as follows: it must
have the U(2) gauge group, the Fayet-
Iliopoulos term and four flavor
hypermultiplets. Then it supports
semilocal vortices with the world-sheet
theory for orientational (size) moduli
described by the weighted CP(2,2) model.
The latter is superconformal. Its target
space is six-dimensional. The overall
Virasoro central charge is critical. The
world-sheet theory on the vortex
supported in this bulk model is the bona
fide critical string. What are the
implications?