Supersymmetric Virasoro Minimal Strings: Unified Perturbative and Non-Perturbative Treatment

Abstract

There are four known ${N}{=}1$ supersymmetric Virasoro minimal string theories, naturally coming in two pairs and labeled as 0A$^\pm$ and 0B$^\pm$. We observe here that all four are naturally described in terms of solutions of an ordinary differential equation that describes certain random matrix models with positive spectra. Two new additional 0A$^-$ theories, which are unorientable, are naturally described by the framework. The formulation allows for simple computation of all perturbative amplitudes, and provides complete non-perturbative information as well. Our approach makes it clear why type 0A$^-$ can be deformed to include a gas of Ramond vertex insertions, which we fully describe, while type 0A$^+$ cannot. While it is known that the $c\rightarrow\infty$ limit reduces the 0A$^-$ and 0B$^-$ models to the familiar 0A and 0B JT supergravities of Stanford and Witten, the same limit for the plus pair reduces to non-perturbative completions of ordinary JT gravity, one of which is known. Large families of ${N}{=}2$ and ${N}{=}4$ supersymmetric analogues of the Virasoro minimal strings are also proposed and explored in detail, using the same approach.