States on the Coulomb branch of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory are studied from the point of view of gauged supergravity in five dimensions. These supersymmetric solutions provide examples of consistent truncation from type IIB supergravity in ten dimensions. A mass gap for states created by local operators and perfect screening for external quarks arise in the supergravity approximation. We offer an interpretation of these surprising features in terms of ensembles of brane distributions.
We compare the dynamics of maximal three-dimensional gauged supergravity in appropriate truncations with the equations of motion that follow from a one-dimensional E10/K(E10) coset model at the first few levels. The constant embedding tensor, which describes gauge deformations and also constitutes an M-theoretic degree of freedom beyond eleven-dimensional supergravity, arises naturally as an integration constant of the geodesic model. In a detailed analysis, we find complete agreement at the lowest levels. At higher levels there appear mismatches, as in previous studies. We discuss the origin of these mismatches.
We construct supersymmetric $AdS_3times Sigma$ solutions of minimal gauged supergravity in $D=5$, where $Sigma$ is a two-dimensional orbifold known as a spindle. Remarkably, these uplift on $S^5$, or more generally on any regular Sasaki-Einstein manifold, to smooth solutions of type IIB supergravity. The solutions are dual to $d=2$, $mathcal{N}=(0,2)$ SCFTs and we show that the central charge for the gravity solution agrees with a field theory calculation associated with D3-branes wrapped on $Sigma$. Unlike for smooth $Sigma$ the superconformal R-symmetry mixes with the $U(1)$ isometry of the spindle.
The relative coefficients of higher derivative interactions of the IIB effective action of the form C^4, (D F_5)^4, F_5^8, ... (where C is the Weyl tensor and F_5 is the five-form field strength) are motivated by supersymmetry arguments. It is shown that the classical supergravity solution for N parallel D3-branes is unaltered by this combination of terms. The non-vanishing of zeroC^2 in this background (where zero C is the background value of the Weyl tensor) leads to effective O(1/alpha) interactions, such as C^2 and Lambda^8 (where Lambda is the dilatino). These contain D-instanton contributions in addition to tree and one-loop terms. The near horizon limit of the N D3-brane system describes a multi-AdS_5xS^5 geometry that is dual to calN=4 SU(N) Yang-Mills theory spontaneously broken to S(U(M_1)x...xU(M_r)). Here, the N D3-branes are grouped into r coincident bunches with M_r in each group, with M_r/N = m_r fixed as N goes to infinity. The boundary correlation function of eight Lambdas is constructed explicitly. The second part of the paper considers effects of a constrained instanton in this large-N Yang-Mills theory by an extension of the analysis of Dorey, Hollowood and Khoze of the one-instanton measure at finite N. This makes precise the correspondence with the supergravity D-instanton measure at leading order in the 1/N expansion. However, the duality between instanton-induced correlation functions in Yang-Mills theory and the dual supergravity is somewhat obscured by complications relating to the structure of constrained instantons.
In this note we outline the arguments against the ten-dimensional consistency of the simplest types of KKLT de Sitter vacua, as given in arXiv:1707.08678. We comment on parametrization proposals within four-dimensional supergravity and express our disagreement with the recent criticism by the authors of arXiv:1808.09428.
We analyze a particular SU(2) invariant sector of the scalar manifold of gauged N=8 supergravity in five dimensions, and find all the critical points of the potential within this sector. The critical points give rise to Anti-de Sitter vacua, and preserve at least an SU(2) gauge symmetry. Consistent truncation implies that these solutions correspond to Anti-de Sitter compactifications of IIB supergravity, and hence to possible near-horizon geometries of 3-branes. Thus we find new conformal phases of softly broken N=4 Yang--Mills theory. One of the critical points preserves N=2 supersymmetry in the bulk and is therefore completely stable, and corresponds to an N=1 superconformal fixed point of the Yang--Mills theory. The corresponding renormalization group flow from the N=4 point has c_{IR}/c_{UV} = 27/32. We also discuss the ten-dimensional geometries corresponding to these critical points.