Convergence of Nekrasov instanton sum with adjoint matter

Abstract

The Nekrasov instanton partition function of the 4d $\mathcal{N}=2^*$ $U(N)$ gauge theory (a mass deformation of 4d $\mathcal{N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills theory), which is a generating series of equivariant integrals over instanton moduli spaces, is given by a sum over colored partitions weighted by a counting parameter $\mathfrak{q}$. This note proves convergence of the series in the unit disk $|\mathfrak{q}|<1$ for generic parameters. Specifically, the absolute convergence radius of this sum is determined, assuming that mass and Coulomb branch parameters avoid some lattice. If the ratio $b^2=ε_1/ε_2$ of equivariant parameters is in $\mathbb{C}\setminus[0,+\infty)$, the radius is $1$, as expected. If $b^2$ is non-negative, three cases arise: the radius is finite if $b^2$ has finite exponential type (a generalization of Brjuno numbers), namely there exists $C>0$ such that $|b^2-p/q|>\exp(-Cq)$ for all integers $p,q\neq 0$; the series diverges if $b^2$ is super-exponentially well approximable by rationals; and if $b^2$ is rational some terms are singular. The AGT correspondence translates these results to convergence of torus one-point conformal blocks of the Virasoro and $W_N$ algebras with non-real $b$, within the unit disk. For the Virasoro algebra this corresponds to a central charge in $\mathbb{C}\setminus[25,+\infty)$.