Non-supersymmetric CS-matter theories with known AdS duals

We consider three dimensional conformal field theories living on a stack of N anti-M2 branes at the tip of eight-dimensional supersymmetric cones. The corresponding supergravity solution is obtained by changing sign to the four-form in the Freund-Rubin solution representing M2 branes ("skew-whiffing" transformation) and it is known to be stable. The existence of these non supersymmetric, stable field theories, at least in the large N limit, is a peculiarity of the AdS4/CFT3 correspondence with respect to the usual AdS5/CFT4, and it is worthwhile to study it. We analyze in detail the KK spectrum of the skew-whiffed solution associated with S^7/Z_k and we speculate on the natural field content for a candidate non-supersymmetric dual field theory.Comment: 16 pages; Contribution prepared for the AHEP special issue on "Computational Algebraic Geometry in String and Gauge Theory", citations adde

Parameter spaces of massive IIA solutions

We find a new class of N=2 massive IIA solutions whose internal spaces are S^2 fibrations over S^2 x S^2. These solutions appear naturally as massive deformations of the type IIA reduction of Sasaki-Einstein manifolds in M-theory, including Q^{1,1,1} and Y^{p,k}, and play a role in the AdS4/CFT3 correspondence. We use this example to initiate a systematic study of the parameter space of massive solutions with fluxes. We define and study the natural parameter space of the solutions, which is a certain dense subset of R^3, whose boundaries correspond to orbifold or conifold singularities. On a codimension-one subset of the parameter space, where the Romans mass vanishes, it is possible to perform a lift to M-theory; extending earlier work, we produce a family A^{p,q,r} of Sasaki-Einstein manifolds with cohomogeneity one and SU(2) x SU(2) x U(1) isometry. We also propose a Chern-Simons theory describing the duals of the massless and massive solutions.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figures; comments and references adde

Issues on Orientifolds: On the brane construction of gauge theories with SO(2n) global symmetry

We discuss issues related to orientifolds and the brane realization for gauge theories with orthogonal and symplectic groups. We specifically discuss the case of theories with (hidden) global SO(2n) symmetry, from three to six dimensions. We analyze mirror symmetry for three dimensional N=4 gauge theories, Brane Box Models and six-dimensional gauge theories. We also discuss the issue of T-duality for D_n space-time singularities. Stuck D branes on ON^0 planes play an interesting role.Comment: 38 pages, 23 figures, uses bibtex and (provided) utphys.bs

Extended Supersymmetry on Curved Spaces

We study N=2 superconformal theories on Euclidean and Lorentzian four-manifolds with a view toward applications to holography and localization. The conditions for supersymmetry are equivalent to a set of differential constraints including a "generalised" conformal Killing spinor equation depending on various background fields. We solve these equations in the general case and give very explicit expressions for the auxiliary fields that we need to turn on to preserve some supersymmetry. As opposed to what has been observed for the N=1 case, the conditions for unbroken supersymmetry turn out to be almost independent of the signature of spacetime, with the exception of few degenerate cases including the topological twist. Generically, the only geometrical constraint coming from supersymmetry is the existence of a conformal Killing vector on the manifold, all other constraints determine the background auxiliary fields.Comment: 31 pages, v2: minor changes and important references adde

Monopoles in String Theory

A realization of E_{n+1} monopoles in string theory is given. The NS five brane stuck to an Orientifold eight plane is identified as the 't Hooft Polyakov monopole. Correspondingly, the moduli space of many such NS branes is identified with the moduli space of SU(2) monopoles. These monopoles transform in the spinor representation of an SO(2n) gauge group when n D8 branes are stacked upon the orientifold plane. This leads to a realization of E_{n+1} monopole moduli spaces. Charge conservation leads to a dynamical effect which does not allow the NS branes to leave the orientifold plane. This suggests that the monopole moduli space is smooth for n8 obeys a similar condition. Using a chain of dualities, we also connect our system to an Heterotic background with Kaluza-Klein monopoles.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figure

Holographic Effective Field Theories

We derive the four-dimensional low-energy effective field theory governing the moduli space of strongly coupled superconformal quiver gauge theories associated with D3-branes at Calabi-Yau conical singularities in the holographic regime of validity. We use the dual supergravity description provided by warped resolved conical geometries with mobile D3-branes. Information on the baryonic directions of the moduli space is also obtained by using wrapped Euclidean D3-branes. We illustrate our general results by discussing in detail their application to the Klebanov-Witten model.Comment: 56 pages; v2: minor changes, version published in JHE

Non-Relativistic Solutions of N=2 Gauged Supergravity

We find infinite families of supersymmetric solutions of four dimensional, N=2 gauged supergravity with Lifshitz, Schrodinger and also AdS symmetries. We focus on the canonical example of a single hypermultiplet and a single vector multiplet and find that the spectrum of solutions depends crucially on whether the gaugings are electric or magnetic but to a far milder extent on the strength of the gaugings. For purely electric or purely magnetic gaugings we generically find Lifshitz solutions, while for a mixed gauging we find Schrodinger and AdS solutions. For some of the gaugings the theory has a known lift to string/M-theory thus giving a higher dimensional embedding of our solutions.Comment: 27 pages, v2 refs added, comments regarding string embeddings altered, cleaner discussion of the scaling parameter for Schrodinger solutions; v3 published version, refs adde

Counting BPS Baryonic Operators in CFTs with Sasaki-Einstein duals

We study supersymmetric D3 brane configurations wrapping internal cycles of type II backgrounds AdS(5) x H for a generic Sasaki-Einstein manifold H. These configurations correspond to BPS baryonic operators in the dual quiver gauge theory. In each sector with given baryonic charge, we write explicit partition functions counting all the BPS operators according to their flavor and R-charge. We also show how to extract geometrical information about H from the partition functions; in particular, we give general formulae for computing volumes of three cycles in H.Comment: 46 pages, 10 figures; comments and clarifications added, published versio