F-theoretic vs microscopic description of a conformal N=2 SYM theory

Understand

The F-theory background of four D7 branes in a type I' orientifold was conjectured to be described by the Seiberg-Witten curve for the superconformal SU(2) gauge theory with four flavors.

• This relation was explained by considering in this background a probe D3 brane, which supports this theory with SU(2) realized as Sp(1).
• Here we explicitly compute the non-perturbative corrections to the D7/D3 system in type I' due to D-instantons.
• This computation provides both the quartic effective action on the D7 branes and the quadratic effective action on the D3 brane; the latter agrees with the F-theoretic prediction.