From pq-webs to magnetic quivers and back I: dictionary and deformations

Abstract

This is the first of two companion papers in which we study five-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ theories engineered by $(p,q)$ five-brane webs and their associated three-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ magnetic quivers. We focus on the $N+\mathrm{SU}(N)_0^{k-1}+N$ box quiver theories. We propose an exact parameter dictionary relating the five-dimensional flavour masses and instanton couplings to the Fayet-Iliopoulos parameters of the corresponding strong-coupling magnetic quiver. We test this dictionary through a broad class of deformations, including mass deformations, weak-coupling limits, and vacuum expectation values. On the five-dimensional side, we implement these flows directly at the level of the superconformal index. The dictionary fixes the corresponding FI deformations and monopole VEVs. We analyse them in the magnetic-quiver squashed-sphere partition function using a new method that tracks Higgsing, decoupled sectors, and infrared theories. Our results promote magnetic quivers to tools for the quantitative study of how the five-dimensional superconformal index responds to deformations. Once the parameter dictionary is known, exact three-dimensional observables can be used to reconstruct the corresponding five-dimensional physics and to navigate the full deformation network in both directions.