Bipartite field theories and D-brane instantons

Abstract

We study D-brane instantons in systems of D3-branes at toric CY 3-fold singularities. The instanton effect can be described as a backreaction modifying the geometry of the mirror configuration, in which the breaking of $U(1)$ symmetries by the instanton translates into the recombination of gauge D-branes, which also directly generates the instanton-induced charged field theory operator. In this paper we describe the D-brane instanton backreaction in terms of a combinatorial operation in the bipartite dimer diagram of the original theory. Interestingly, the resulting theory is a general Bipartite Field Theory (BFT), defined by a bipartite graph tiling a general (possibly higher-genus) Riemann surface. This provides the first string theory realization of such general BFTs. We study the general properties of the resulting theories, including the construction of the higher-dimensional toric diagrams and the interplay between backreaction and Seiberg duality. In cases where the non-perturbative effects relate to complex deformations, we show that the procedure reproduces and explains earlier existing combinatorial recipes. The combinatorial operation and its properties generalize to an operation on the class of general BFTs, even including boundaries, relating BFTs defined on Riemann surfaces of different genus.