Branes, superpotentials and superconformal fixed points Original Research Article

We analyze various brane configurations corresponding to field theories in three, four and five dimensions. We find brane configurations which correspond to three-dimensional N = 2 and four-dimensional N = 1 supersymmetric QCD theories with quartic superpotentials, in which what appear to be “hidden parameters” play an important role. We discuss the construction of five-dimensional N = 1 supersymmetric gauge theories and superconformal fixed points using branes, which leads to new five-dimensional N = 1 superconformal field theories. The same five-dimensional theories are also used, in a surprising way, to describe new superconformal fixed points of three-dimensional N = 2 supersymmetric theories, which have both “electric” and “magnetic” Coulomb branches.