Recently, a correspondence has been proposed between spectral theory and topological strings on toric Calabi-Yau manifolds. In this paper we develop in detail this correspondence for mirror curves of higher genus, which display many new features as compared to the genus one case studied so far. Given a curve of genus g, our quantization scheme leads to g different trace class operators. Their spectral properties are encoded in a generalized spectral determinant, which is an entire function on the Calabi-Yau moduli space. We conjecture an exact expression for this spectral determinant in terms of the standard and refined topological string amplitudes. This conjecture provides a non-perturbative definition of the topological string on these geometries, in which the genus expansion emerges in a suitable 't Hooft limit of the spectral traces of the operators. In contrast to what happens in quantum integrable systems, our quantization scheme leads to a single quantization condition, which is elegantly encoded by the vanishing of a quantum-deformed theta function on the mirror curve. We illustrate our general theory by analyzing in detail the resolved C 3 /Z 5 orbifold, which is the simplest toric Calabi-Yau manifold with a genus two mirror curve. By applying our conjecture to this example, we find new quantization conditions for quantum mechanical operators, in terms of genus two theta functions, as well as new number-theoretic properties for the periods of this Calabi-Yau.arXiv:1507.02096v3 [hep-th]
We show that, in ABJ(M) theories with N = 8 supersymmetry, the nonperturbative sector of the partition function on the three-sphere simplifies drastically. Due to this simplification, we are able to write closed form expressions for the grand potential of these theories, which determines the full large N asymptotics. Moreover, we find explicit formulae for the generating functionals of their partition functions, for all values of the rank N of the gauge group: they involve Jacobi theta functions on the spectral curve associated to the planar limit. Exact quantization conditions for the spectral problem of the Fermi gas are then obtained from the vanishing of the theta function. We also show that the partition function, as a function of N , can be extended in a natural way to an entire function on the full complex plane, and we explore some possible consequences of this fact for the quantum geometry of M-theory and for putative de Sitter extensions.
We show that the all-orders WKB periods of one-dimensional quantum mechanical oscillators are governed by the refined holomorphic anomaly equations of topological string theory. We analyze in detail the double-well potential and the cubic and quartic oscillators, and we calculate the WKB expansion of their quantum free energies by using the direct integration of the anomaly equations. We reproduce in this way all known results about the quantum periods of these models, which we express in terms of modular forms on the WKB curve. As an application of our results, we study the large order behavior of the WKB expansion in the case of the double well, which displays the double factorial growth typical of string theory.
This work develops a new method to calculate non-perturbative corrections in onedimensional Quantum Mechanics, based on trans-series solutions to the refined holomorphic anomaly equations of topological string theory. The method can be applied to traditional spectral problems governed by the Schrödinger equation, where it both reproduces and extends the results of well-established approaches, such as the exact WKB method. It can be also applied to spectral problems based on the quantization of mirror curves, where it leads to new results on the transseries structure of the spectrum. Various examples are discussed, including the modified Mathieu equation, the double-well potential, and the quantum mirror curves of local P 2 and local F 0 . In all these examples, it is verified in detail that the trans-series obtained with this new method correctly predict the large-order behavior of the corresponding perturbative sectors.
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