Ricci flow of Integrable Sigma Models, Hitchin Systems and Quantum Seiberg-Witten theory

Abstract

We construct a family of integrable 2d sigma models through 4d Chern-Simons theory and show that their classical point-particle reduction corresponds to a Hitchin system. The integrable Hitchin quantisation then provides a natural candidate Hamiltonian for the one-loop reduced dynamics of the sigma models, which coincides with the Perelman operator in all cases examined. This allows us to study the corresponding spectral problems using 4d $\mathcal{N}=2$ gauge theory and 2d conformal field theory methods. For the sausage model, we derive exact quantisation conditions and compute exponentially small corrections essential for the agreement with numerical finite-volume results.