On irregular states and Argyres-Douglas theories

Abstract

Conformal theories of the Argyres-Douglas type are notoriously hard to study given that they are isolated and strongly coupled thus lacking a lagrangian description. In flat space, an exact description is provided by the Seiberg-Witten theory. Turning on a $\Omega$-background makes the geometry ``quantum" and tractable only in the weak curvature limit. In this paper we use the AGT correspondence to derive $\Omega$-exact formulae for the partition function, in the nearby of monopole points where the dynamics is described by irregular conformal blocks of the CFT. The results are checked against those obtained by the recursion relations coming from a conformal anomaly in the region where the two approaches overlap. The Nekrasov-Shatashvili limit is also discussed. Finally, we comment on the existence of black holes in De Sitter space whose low energy dynamics is described by an Argyres-Douglas theory.