We define a notion of stability for chiral ring of four dimensional N= 1 theory by introducing test chiral rings and generalized a maximization. We conjecture that a chiral ring is the chiral ring of a superconformal field theory if and only if it is stable. We then study N= 1 field theory derived from D3 branes probing a three-fold singularity X, and show that the K stability which implies the existence of Ricci-flat conic metric on X is equivalent to the stability of chiral ring of the corresponding field theory.

We show that the six-dimensional uplift of the five-dimensional Near-Horizon-Extremal-Kerr (NHEK) spacetime can be obtained from an AdS_3 X S^3 solution by a sequence of supergravity - but not string theory - dualities. We present three ways of viewing these pseudo-dualities: as a series of transformations in the STU model, as a combination of Melvin twists and T-dualities and, finally, as a sequence of two generalized spectral flows and a coordinate transformation. We then use these to find an infinite family of asymptotically flat embeddings of NHEK spacetimes in string theory, parameterized by the arbitrary values of the moduli at infinity. Our construction reveals the existence of non-perturbative deformations of asymptotically-NHEK spacetimes, which correspond to the bubbling of nontrivial cycles wrapped by flux, and paves the way for finding a microscopic field theory dual to NHEK which involves Melvin twists of the D1-D5 gauge theory. Our analysis also clarifies the meaning of the generalized spectral flow solution-generating techniques that have been recently employed in the literature.

Wave dynamics in topological materials has been widely studied recently. A striking feature is the existence of robust and chiral wave propagations that have potential applications in many fields. A common way to realize such wave patterns is to utilize Dirac points which carry topological indices and is supported by the symmetries of the media. In this work, we investigate these phenomena in photonic media. Starting with Maxwell's equations with a honeycomb material weight as well as the nonlinear Kerr effect, we first prove the existence of Dirac points in the dispersion surfaces of transverse electric and magnetic Maxwell operators under very general assumptions of the material weight. Our assumptions on the material weight are almost the minimal requirements to ensure the existence of Dirac points in a general hexagonal photonic crystal. We then derive the associated wave packet dynamics in the scenario where the honeycomb structure is weakly modulated. It turns out the reduced envelope equation is generally a two-dimensional nonlinear Dirac equation with a spatially varying mass. By studying the reduced envelope equation with a domain-wall-like mass term, we realize the subtle wave motions which are chiral and immune to local defects. The underlying mechanism is the existence of topologically protected linear line modes, also referred to as edge states. However, we show that these robust linear modes do not survive with nonlinearity. We demonstrate the existence of nonlinear line modes, which can propagate in the nonlinear media based on high-accuracy numerical computations. Moreover, we also report a new type of nonlinear modes which are localized in both directions.

We study the differential polynomial rings which are defined using the special geometry of the moduli spaces of Calabi-Yau threefolds. The higher genus topological string amplitudes are expressed as polynomials in the generators of these rings, giving them a global description in the moduli space. At particular loci, the amplitudes yield the generating functions of Gromov-Witten invariants. We show that these rings are isomorphic to the rings of quasi modular forms for threefolds with duality groups for which these are known. For the other cases, they provide generalizations thereof. We furthermore study an involution which acts on the quasi modular forms. We interpret it as a duality which exchanges two distinguished expansion loci of the topological string amplitudes in the moduli space. We construct these special polynomial rings and match them with known quasi modular forms for non-compact Calabi-Yau geometries and their

We show that the spinning magnetic one-brane in minimal five-dimensional supergravity admits a decoupling limit that interpolates smoothly between a self-dual null orbifold of AdS_3 \times S^2 and the near-horizon limit of the extremal Kerr black hole times a circle. We use this interpolating solution to understand the field theory dual to spinning M5 branes as a deformation of the Discrete Light Cone Quantized (DLCQ) Maldacena-Stominger-Witten (MSW) CFT. In particular, the conformal weights of the operators dual to the deformation around AdS_3 \times S^2 are calculated. We present pieces of evidence showing that a CFT dual to the four-dimensional extremal Kerr can be obtained from the deformed MSW CFT.