Joyce structures, twistors and topological strings
Résumé
As shown by T. Bridgeland, a Riemann-Hilbert problem determined by Donaldson-Thomas invariants naturally gives rise to the so-called Joyce structure. It can be characterized by a function known as Plebanski potential, or its close cousin Joyce potential. I'll show that a twistorial solution to the RH problem provides a simple integral expressions for both potentials. Then I'll explain the relation of this solution to the conformal limit of the twistor spaces
appearing in gauge and string theories, and physical interpretation acquired by
the two potentials in these setups. For the case of the resolved conifold, I'll present a recipe to make the twistorial solution well-defined despite an infinite BPS spectrum, and trace out the emergence of a tau-function, its relation to topological strings and its behavior under S-duality to the twistorial implementation of instantons in string theory.