Disconnected gauge groups have been, at least comparatively, very poorly studied. Yet they may hide very interesting Physics. Recently, a class of gauge theories based on a particular type of disconnected gauge groups, namely principal extensions, has been introduced. Interestingly, such theories naturally implement the gauging of charge conjugation. In this talk, we will describe such construction and study aspects of its Physics. A particularly spectacular by-product of the construction is that these theories have non-freely generated Coulomb branches, thus providing the first counterexample of the long standing standard lore that Coulomb branch are all freely generated.

5d theories can be at fixed points, in many cases exhibiting rather amusing properties. In this talk we will study several properties of these fixed point theories. In particular, we will describe how to put them supersymmetrically in curved spaces. As a consequence, we will discuss when a deformation to a Yang-Mills theory is possible. The latter typically exhibit a smaller global symmetry that that of the fixed point theory, which, from the YM point of view, appears as an enhanced symmetry. In this enhancement instantons play a pivotal role, and we will discuss several aspects of these.

Counting operators in supersymmetric field theories is very interesting, as the corresponding generating functions encode properties of the field theory. In this lecture we will mostly concentrate on 4d SUSY field theories. After reviewing some basic notions about SUSY field theories leading to the notion of chiral ring, we will introduce a generating function enumerating operators in the ring. This function is the so-called Hilbert series. In the case of SCFTs with a gravity dual, we will show how this function recovers geometric properties of the dual gravity background. The uses of the Hilbert series go beyond this, since, as we will see, being a counting of operators, it is of relevance in the computation of instanton partition functions for pure gauge theories. In the second part of the lecture we will briefly touch upon these issues.

In this talk I will review recent progress in understanding aspects of 5d gauge theories. Under certain circumstances these can be at fixed points admitting a large N limit, whose gravity dual we will discuss. Such gravity dual suggests a yet more general class of quiver-type fixed point theories which can sometimes be understood in terms of S-duality. To this matter the braneweb construction of the theories will prove very helpful, yielding new insights which we will test using the 5d superconformal index.

In this talk I will review recent progress in understanding aspects of 5d gauge theories. Under certain circumstances these can be at fixed points admitting a large N limit, whose gravity dual we will discuss. Such gravity dual suggests a yet more general class of quiver-type fixed point theories which can sometimes be understood in terms of S-duality. To this matter the braneweb construction of the theories will prove very helpful, yielding new insights which we will test using the 5d superconformal index.