Twistors, the ASD Yang-Mills equations and 4d Chern-Simons theory

We show that the approaches to integrable systems via 4d Chern-Simons theory and via symmetry reductions of the anti-self-dual Yang-Mills equations are closely related, at least classically. Following a suggestion of Kevin Costello, we start from holomorphic Chern-Simons theory on twistor space, defined with the help of a meromorphic (3,0)-form omega. If omega is nowhere vanishing, it descends to a theory on 4d space-time with classical equations of motion equivalent to the anti-self-dual Yang-Mills equations. Examples include a 4d analogue of the Wess-Zumino-Witten model and a theory of a Lie algebra valued scalar with a cubic two derivative interaction. Under symmetry reduction, these yield actions for 2d integrable systems. On the other hand, performing the symmetry reduction directly on twistor space reduces holomorphic Chern-Simons theory to the 4d Chern-Simons theory with disorder defects studied by Costello & Yamazaki. Finally we show that a similar reduction by a single translation leads to a 5d partially holomorphic Chern-Simons theory describing the Bogomolny equations.

Automated summary

We demonstrate the close relationship between the approaches to integrable systems using 4d Chern-Simons theory and symmetry reductions of the anti-self-dual Yang-Mills equations, at least in the classical case. By starting from holomorphic Chern-Simons theory on twistor space and performing symmetry reductions, we obtain theories for 2d integrable systems and 4d Chern-Simons theory with disorder defects. Additionally, a reduction by a single translation leads to a 5d partially holomorphic Chern-Simons theory describing the Bogomolny equations.