The N=2 gauge theory prepotential and periods from a perturbative matrix model calculation

We perform a completely perturbative matrix model calculation of the physical low-energy quantities of the N=2 U(N) gauge theory. Within the matrix model framework we propose a perturbative definition of the periods a_i in terms of certain tadpole diagrams, and check our conjecture up to first order in the gauge theory instanton expansion. The prescription does not require knowledge of the Seiberg-Witten differential or curve. We also compute the N=2 prepotential F(a) perturbatively up to the first-instanton level finding agreement with the known result.