Commutation relations for surface operators in six-dimensional (2, 0) theory

Abstract

The A_{N - 1} (2, 0) superconformal theory has an observable associated with every two-cycle in six dimensions. We make a natural guess for the commutation relations of these operators, which reduces to the commutation relations of Wilson and 't Hooft lines in four-dimensional SU(N) N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory upon compactification on a two-torus. We then verify these commutation relations by considering the theory at a generic point of its moduli space and including in the surface operators only contributions from the light degrees of freedom, which amount to N - 1 (2, 0) tensor multiplets.