Mayer-cluster expansion of instanton partition functions and thermodynamic bethe ansatz

In [19] Nekrasov and Shatashvili pointed out that the $\mathcal{N}$ = 2 instanton partition function in a special limit of the Ω-deformation parameters is characterized by certain thermodynamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) like equations. In this work we present an explicit derivation of this fact as well as generalizations to quiver gauge theories. To do so we combine various techniques like the iterated Mayer expansion, the method of expansion by regions, and the path integral tricks for non-perturbative summation. The TBA equations derived entirely within gauge theory have been proposed to encode the spectrum of a large class of quantum integrable systems. We hope that the derivation presented in this paper elucidates further this completely new point of view on the origin, as well as on the structure, of TBA equations in integrable models.