Branes and Categorifying Integrable Lattice Models

Abstract

We elucidate how integrable lattice models described by Costello's 4d Chern-Simons theory can be realized via a stack of D4-branes ending on an NS5-brane in type IIA string theory, with D0-branes on the D4-brane worldvolume sourcing a meromorphic RR 1-form, and fundamental strings forming the lattice. This provides us with a nonperturbative integration cycle for the 4d Chern-Simons theory, and by applying T- and S-duality, we show how the R-matrix, the Yang-Baxter equation and the Yangian can be categorified, that is, obtained via the Hilbert space of a 6d gauge theory.