Secondary invariants and non-perturbative states

Abstract

At finite $N$ the ring of gauge invariant operators is not freely generated. For problems of interest in physics, these rings are Cohen--Macaulay and admit a Hironaka decomposition, in which the full invariant ring is a free module over a polynomial ring generated by the primary invariants. The module basis is given by finitely many secondary invariants. This motivates a physical picture in which the primary invariants are regarded as perturbative degrees of freedom while the secondary invariants are associated with distinguished non-perturbative states or sectors. The purpose of this study is to show that a concrete algebraic version of this picture is visible in simple zero-dimensional matrix integrals.