New N = 1 superconformal field theories in four dimensions from D-brane probes Original Research Article

We present several new examples of non-trivial 4D N = 1 superconformal field theories. Some of these theories exhibit exotic global symmetries, including non-simply laced groups (such as F4). They are obtained by studying three-brane probes in F-theory compactifications on elliptic Calabi-Yau threefolds. The geometry of the compactification encodes in a simple way the behavior of the gauge coupling and the Kähler potential on the Coulomb branch of these theories.