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N=2*Gauge Theory, Free Fermions on the Torus and Painleve VI
In this paper we study the extension of Painlevé/gauge theory correspondence to circular quivers by focusing on the special case ofSU(2)N= 2∗theory. We show that the Nekrasov-Okounkov partition function of this gauge theory provides an explicit combinatorial expression and a Fredholm determinant formula for the tau-function describing isomonodromic deformations ofSL2flat connections on the one-punctured torus. This is achieved by reformulating the Riemann-Hilbert problem associated to the latter in terms of chiral conformal blocks of a free-fermionic algebra. This viewpoint provides the exact solution of the renormalization group flow of theSU(2)N= 2∗theory on self-dualΩ-background and, in the Seiberg-Witten limit, an elegant relation between the IR and UVgauge couplings.