Quantum curves and $q$-deformed Painlev\'e equations

Abstract

We propose that the grand canonical topological string partition functions satisfy finite-difference equations in the closed string moduli. In the case of genus one mirror curve these are conjectured to be the q-difference Painlev\'e equations as in Sakai's classification. More precisely, we propose that the tau-functions of q-Painlev\'e equations are related to the grand canonical topological string partition functions on the corresponding geometry. In the toric cases we use topological string/spectral theory duality to give a Fredholm determinant representation for the above tau-functions in terms of the underlying quantum mirror curve. As a consequence, the zeroes of the tau-functions compute the exact spectrum of the associated quantum integrable systems. We provide details of this construction for the local $\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb{P}^1$ case, which is related to q-difference Painlev\'e with affine $A_1$ symmetry, to $SU(2)$ Super Yang-Mills in five dimensions and to relativistic Toda system.