Toric geometry and the dual of $c$-extremization

Abstract

We consider D3-brane gauge theories at an arbitrary toric Calabi-Yau 3-fold cone singularity that are then further compactified on a Riemann surface $Σ_g$, with an arbitrary partial topological twist for the global $U(1)$ symmetries. This constitutes a rich, infinite class of two-dimensional $(0,2)$ theories. Under the assumption that such a theory flows to a SCFT, we show that the supergravity formulas for the central charge and $R$-charges of BPS baryonic operators of the dual AdS$_3$ solution may be computed using only the toric data of the Calabi-Yau 3-fold and the topological twist parameters. We exemplify the procedure for both the $Y^{p,q}$ and $X^{p,q}$ 3-fold singularities, along with their associated dual quiver gauge theories, showing that the new supergravity results perfectly match the field theory results obtained using $c$-extremization, for arbitrary twist over $Σ_g$. We furthermore conjecture that the trial central charge $\mathscr{Z}$, which we define in gravity, matches the field theory trial $c$-function off-shell, and show this holds in non-trivial examples. Finally, we check our general geometric formulae against a number of explicitly known supergravity solutions.