3D gauged supergravity from SU(2) reduction of N=1N=1 6D supergravity

We obtain Yang-Mills $SU(2)\times G$ gauged supergravity in three dimensions from $SU(2)$ group manifold reduction of (1,0) six dimensional supergravity coupled to an anti-symmetric tensor multiplet and gauge vector multiplets in the adjoint of $G$. The reduced theory is consistently truncated to $N=4$ 3D supergravity coupled to $4(1+\textrm{dim}\, G)$ bosonic and $4(1+\textrm{dim}\, G)$ fermionic propagating degrees of freedom. This is in contrast to the reduction in which there are also massive vector fields. The scalar manifold is $\mathbf{R}\times \frac{SO(3,\, \textrm{dim}\, G)}{SO(3)\times SO(\textrm{dim}\, G)}$, and there is a $SU(2)\times G$ gauge group. We then construct $N=4$ Chern-Simons $(SO(3)\ltimes \mathbf{R}^3)\times (G\ltimes \mathbf{R}^{\textrm{dim}G})$ three dimensional gauged supergravity with scalar manifold $\frac{SO(4,\,1+\textrm{dim}G)}{SO(4)\times SO(1+\textrm{dim}G)}$ and explicitly show that this theory is on-shell equivalent to the Yang-Mills $SO(3)\times G$ gauged supergravity theory obtained from the $SU(2)$ reduction, after integrating out the scalars and gauge fields corresponding to the translational symmetries $\mathbf{R}^3\times \mathbf{R}^{\textrm{dim}\, G}$.Comment: 24 pages, no figures, references added and typos correcte

On Subleading Contributions to the AdS/CFT Trace Anomaly

In the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we perform a direct computation in AdS_5 supergravity of the trace anomaly of a d=4, N=2 SCFT. We find agreement with the field theory result up to next to leading order in the 1/N expansion. In particular, the order N gravitational contribution to the anomaly is obtained from a Riemann tensor squared term in the 7-brane effective action deduced from heterotic - type I duality. We also discuss, in the AdS/CFT context, the order N corrections to the trace anomaly in d=4, N=4 SCFTs involving SO or Sp gauge groups.Comment: 25 pages, LaTeX, v2: references adde

Structure constants of planar N =4 Yang Mills at one loop

We study structure constants of gauge invariant operators in planar N=4 Yang-Mills at one loop with the motivation of determining features of the string dual of weak coupling Yang-Mills. We derive a simple renormalization group invariant formula characterizing the corrections to structure constants of any primary operator in the planar limit. Applying this to the scalar SO(6) sector we find that the one loop corrections to structure constants of gauge invariant operators is determined by the one loop anomalous dimension Hamiltonian in this sector. We then evaluate the one loop corrections to structure constants for scalars with arbitrary number of derivatives in a given holomorphic direction. We find that the corrections can be characterized by suitable derivatives on the four point tree function of a massless scalar with quartic coupling. We show that individual diagrams violating conformal invariance can be combined together to restore it using a linear inhomogeneous partial differential equation satisfied by this function.Comment: 52 pages, 12 figures, Typos fixed, reference adde

Towards a string bit formulation of N=4 super Yang-Mills

We show that planar cal N=4 Yang-Mills theory at zero 't Hooft coupling can be efficiently described in terms of 8 bosonic and 8 fermionic oscillators. We show that these oscillators can serve as world-sheet variables, the string bits, of a discretized string. There is a one to one correspondence between the on shell gauge invariant words of the free Y-M theory and the states in the oscillators' Hilbert space, obeying a local gauge and cyclicity constraints. The planar two-point functions and the three-point functions of all gauge invariant words are obtained by the simple delta-function overlap of the corresponding discrete string world sheet. At first order in the 't Hooft coupling, i.e. at one-loop in the Y-M theory, the logarithmic corrections of the planar two-point and the three-point functions can be incorporated by nearest neighbour interactions among the discretized string bits. In the SU(2) sub-sector we show that the one-loop corrections to the structure constants can be uniquely determined by the symmetries of the bit picture. For the SU(2) sub-sector we construct a gauged, linear, discrete world-sheet model for the oscillators, with only nearest neighbour couplings, which reproduces the anomalous dimension Hamiltonian up to two loops. This model also obeys BMN scaling to all loops.Comment: 64 pages, 6 figures, typos fixed, references adde

Black Holes in the 3D Higher Spin Theory and Their Quasi Normal Modes

We present a class of 3D Black Holes based on flat connections which are polynomials in the BTZ $hs(\lambda) \times hs(\lambda)$-valued connection. We solve analytically the fluctuation equations of matter in their background and find the spectrum of their Quasi Normal Modes. We analyze the bulk to boundary two-point functions. We also relate our results and those arising in other backgrounds discussed recently in the literature on the subject.Comment: v3: typo corrected in first line of Eq (4.2), improved presentatio

Partition Function of N=2N=2 Gauge Theories on a Squashed S4S^4 with SU(2)×U(1)SU(2)\times U(1) Isometry

We study $N=2$ supersymmetric gauge theories on a large family of squashed 4-spheres preserving $SU(2)\times U(1)\subset SO(4)$ isometry and determine the conditions under which this background is supersymmetric. We then compute the partition function of the theories by using localization technique. The results indicate that for $N=2$ SUSY, including both vector-multiplets and hypermultiplets, the partition function is independent of the arbitrary squashing functions as well as of the other supergravity background fields.Comment: version to appear in Nuclear Physics