We construct a new classical solution in the ABJM theory corresponding to M5-branes with a non-zero self-dual three form flux. This is an M-theory lift of the D4-brane solution expressed as a non-commutative plane in the three dimensional super Yang-Mills theory. We discuss that our solution is closely related with the three-algebra. We show that the corresponding configuration of the M5-brane satisfies the equations of motion in the single M5-brane action. We find the agreement between the tension of the M5-brane solution in the ABJM action and the one computed from the single M5-brane action.
We calculate the fluctuations from the classical multiple M5-brane solution of ABJM action which we found in the previous paper. We obtain D4-brane-like action but the gauge coupling constant depends on the spacetime coordinate. This is consistent with the expected properties of M5-brane action, although we will need to take into account the monopole operators in order to fully understand M5-branes. We also see that the Nambu-Poisson bracket is hidden in the solution.
We study open strings on giant gravitons (D-branes on cycles) in the ABJM/$AdS_4\times \mathbb{CP}^3$ correspondence. We find that their energy spectrum has the same form as the one for closed strings, with a nontrivial function of the coupling, avoiding BMN scaling. A similar, Cuntz oscillator, Hamiltonian description for the string (operators at strong coupling) to the $AdS_5$ case is valid also in this case.
We construct BPS solutions representing M2-M5 bound state in the ABJM action explicitly. They include the funnel type solutions and 't Hooft Polyakov monopole solutions. Furthermore, we give a one to one correspondence between the solutions of the BPS equation and the ones of an extended Nahm equation which includes the Nahm equation. This enables us to construct infinitely many conserved quantities from the Lax form of the Nahm equation.
We study the BPS counting functions (free energies) of the M-string configurations. We consider separated M5-branes along with M2-branes stretched between them, with M5-branes acting as domain walls interpolating different configurations of M2-branes. We find recursive structure in the free energies of these configurations. The M-string degrees of freedom on the domain walls are interpreted in terms of a pair of interacting supersymmetric WZW models. We also compute the elliptic genus of the M-string in a toy model of the ABJM theory and compare it with the M-theory computation.
In the presence of a background supergravity flux, N M2-branes will expand via the Myers effect into M5-branes wrapped on a fuzzy three-sphere. In previous work the fluctuations of the M2-branes were shown to be described by the five-dimensional Yang-Mills gauge theory associated to D4-branes. We show that the ABJM prescription for eleven-dimensional momentum in terms of magnetic flux lifts to an instanton flux of the effective five-dimensional Yang-Mills theory on the sphere, giving an M-theory interpretation for these instantons.
We extend the proposal for a detailed map between wrapped D-branes in Anti-de Sitter space and baryon-like operators in the associated dual conformal field theory provided in hep-th/0202150 to the recently formulated AdS_4 \times CP^3/ABJM correspondence. In this example, the role of the dibaryon operator of the 3-dimensional CFT is played by a D4-brane wrapping a CP^2 \subset CP^3. This topologically stable D-brane in the AdS_4 \times CP^3 is nothing but one-half of the maximal giant graviton on CP^3.
We construct a supersymmetric NS5-brane wrapped on a twisted 5-sphere expanding in the $CP^3$ in $AdS_4\times CP^3$, with D0-brane charge. This configuration provides a realization of the stringy exclusion principle in terms of giant D0-branes. In the maximal case the twisted 5-sphere reduces to a $CP^2$ and its energy can be accounted for both by a bound state of $k$ D4-branes wrapping the $CP^2$ and a bound state of $N$ D0-branes, a realization on the gravity side of the symmetry of Young diagrams with $N$ rows and $k$ columns. We discuss some generalizations of this configuration in M-theor…
We calculate fermionic Green's functions for states of the three-dimensional ABJM M2-brane theory at large N using the gauge-gravity correspondence. We embed extremal black brane solutions in four-dimensional maximally supersymmetric gauged supergravity, obtain the linearized Dirac equations for each spin-1/2 mode that cannot mix with a gravitino, and solve these equations with infalling boundary conditions to calculate retarded Green's functions. For generic values of the chemical potentials, we find Fermi surfaces with universally non-Fermi liquid behavior, matching the situation for four-di…
It is well-known that a supermembrane in the light-cone gauge has a continuous spectrum and is unstable. Physical interpretation of this instability is that a supermembrane can have a long thin tube without cost of energy and consequently it becomes a spiky configuration in which multiple membranes are connected by thin tubes. On the other hand, the ABJM model was proposed as a low-energy description of multiple M2-branes in the static gauge. It is natural that an M2-brane is also unstable in this gauge if we believe the physical picture in the light-cone gauge. In order to examine this, we co…
ABJM theory in the presence of a half-BPS domain wall is dual to the D2-D4 probe brane system with nonzero worldvolume flux. The ABJM domain wall was recently shown to be integrable to lowest order in perturbation theory and bond dimension. In the present paper we show that the string theory dual of this system is integrable, namely that the string boundary conditions on the probe D4-brane preserve the integrability of the Green-Schwarz sigma model. Our result suggests that the ABJM domain wall is integrable to all loop orders and for any value of the bond dimension.
The holographic configurations dual to Wilson loops in higher rank representations in the ABJM theory are described by branes with electric flux along their world volumes. In particular, D2 and D6 branes with electric flux play a central role as potential dual to totally symmetric and totally antisymmetric representations, respectively. We compute the spectra of excitations of these brane configurations in both, the bosonic and fermionic sectors. We highlight a number of aspects that distinguish these configurations from their D3 and D5 cousins including new peculiar mixing terms in the fluctu…
We construct a new NS5-brane solution in AdS_4 x CP^3 with S^2 x S^3 topology. This solution belongs to the general class of non-Einstein N_{11} metrics to which T^{1,1} belongs, and carries a non-vanishing D0-brane charge. In eleven dimensions it gives rise to a squashed S^2 x S^3 M5-brane giant graviton which is now of the N_{10} type. The energies of both solutions satisfy the BPS bound E=kQ/2, indicating supersymmetric configurations, where Q is interpreted as D0-brane charge for the NS5-brane and as angular momentum for the dynamically stable M5-brane giant graviton. The ground state is d…
In this paper we study the thermodynamics of black branes with a modulated complex scalar in the context of bulk and boundary theories. The modulation induces inhomogeneity to the dual field theory, anisotropic pressure, and brane charge to the bulk geometry. The first law of thermodynamics and the Smarr relation are obtained using the off-shell ADT and the reduced action formalisms. We discuss the prescription for the mass of black branes, which relies on relevant and marginal deformations in the dual field theory. One of the cases is the gravity dual to a ABJM model with a sinusoidal mass fu…
We study the effect of adding lower dimensional brane charges to the 't Hooft monopole, di-baryon and baryon vertex configurations in AdS_4 x CP^3. We show that these configurations capture the background fluxes in a way that depends on the induced charges, requiring additional fundamental strings to cancel the worldvolume tadpoles. The dynamics reveal that the charges must lie inside some interval, a situation familiar from the baryon vertex in AdS_5 x S^5 with charges. For the baryon vertex and the di-baryon the number of fundamental strings must also lie inside an allowed interval. Some ide…
We add fundamental matters to the N=6 Chern-Simons theory (ABJM theory), and show that D6-branes wrapped over AdS_4 x S^3/Z_2 in type IIA superstring theory on AdS_4 x CP^3 give its dual description with N=3 supersymmetry. We confirm this by the arguments based on R-symmetry, supersymmetry, and brane configuration of ABJM theory. We also analyze the fluctuations of the D6-brane and compute the conformal dimensions of dual operators. In the presence of fractional branes, the ABJM theory can model the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), with RR-fields regarded as the external electric-magneti…
We study the effect of adding lower dimensional brane charges to the 't Hooft monopole, di-baryon and baryon vertex configurations in $AdS_4 \times \mathbb{P}^3$. We show that these configurations capture the background fluxes in a way that depends on the induced charges, and therefore, require additional fundamental strings in order to cancel the worldvolume tadpoles. The study of the dynamics reveals that the charges must lie inside some interval in order to find well defined configurations, a situation familiar from the baryon vertex in $AdS_5 \times S^5$ with charges. For the baryon vertex…
We study, in a holographic setup, the effect of adding localized fermionic impurities to the three-dimensional Chern-Simons-matter theories with unquenched fields in the fundamental representation of the gauge group. The impurities are introduced as probe D6-branes extending along the radial direction and wrapping a five-dimensional submanifold inside a squashed CP^3. We analyze the straight flux tube embeddings and study the corresponding fluctuation modes of the D6-branes. The conformal dimensions of the operators dual to such fluctuations depend non-trivially on the ratio of the flavor numb…
Using D-brane physics, we study fractional quantum Hall solitons (FQHS) in ABJM-like theory in terms of type IIA dual geometries. In particular, we discuss a class of Chern-Simons (CS) quivers describing FQHS sytems at low energy. These CS quivers come from R-R gauge fields interacting with D6-branes wrapped on 4-cycles, which reside within a blown up CP^3 projective space. Based on the CS quiver method and mimicking the construction of del Pezzo surfaces in terms of CP^2, we first give a model which corresponds to a single layer model of FQHS system, then we propose a multi-layer system gener…
We study the detail derivation of the multiple D2-brane effective action from multiple M2-branes in the Bagger-Lambert-Gustavsson (BLG) theory and the Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena (ABJM) theory by employing the novel Higgs mechanism. We show explicitly that the high-order F^3 and F^4 terms are commutator terms, and conjecture that all the high-order terms are commutator terms. Because the commutator terms can be treated as the covariant derivative terms, these high-order terms do not contribute to the multiple D2-brane effective action. Inspired by the derivation of a single D2-brane fro…
We consider magnetically charged baryon vertex like configurations in AdS^4 X CP^3 with a reduced number of quarks l. We show that these configurations are solutions to the classical equations of motion and are stable beyond a critical value of l. Given that the magnetic flux dissolves D0-brane charge it is possible to give a microscopical description in terms of D0-branes expanding into fuzzy CP^n spaces by Myers dielectric effect. Using this description we are able to explore the region of finite 't Hooft coupling.
We consider the holographic anyons in the ABJM theory from three different aspects of AdS/CFT correspondence. First, we identify the holographic anyons by using the field equations of supergravity, including the Chern-Simons terms of the probe branes. We find that the composite of Dp-branes wrapped over CP3 with the worldvolume magnetic fields can be the anyons. Next, we discuss the possible candidates of the dual anyonic operators on the CFT side, and find the agreement of their anyonic phases with the supergravity analysis. Finally, we try to construct the brane profile for the holographic a…
We construct a large class of ${\cal N} = 3$ Janus ABJM models with mass deformation, where the mass depends on a spatial (or lightcone) coordinate. We also show that the resulting Janus model can be identified with an effective action of M2-branes in the presence of a background self-dual 4-form field strength varying along one spatial (or lightcone) coordinate.
We analyse the fluctuations of the ground-state/funnel solutions proposed to describe M2-M5 systems in the level-k mass-deformed/pure Chern-Simons-matter ABJM theory of multiple membranes. We show that in the large N limit the fluctuations approach the space of functions on the 2-sphere rather than the naively expected 3-sphere. This is a novel realisation of the fuzzy 2-sphere in the context of Matrix Theories, which uses bifundamental instead of adjoint scalars. Starting from the multiple M2-brane action, a U(1) Yang-Mills theory on R^{2,1} x S^2 is recovered at large N, which is consistent …
We study strongly coupled ABJM theory on the 3-sphere with massive quenched flavor using the AdS/CFT correspondence. The holographic dual consists of type IIA supergravity with probe D6-branes. The flavor mass is a relevant deformation driving an RG flow whose IR endpoint is pure ABJM theory. At non-zero mass, we find that the theory on the 3-sphere exhibits a quantum phase transition at a critical value of the sphere radius. The transition corresponds to a topology change in the D6-brane embeddings whose dual interpretation is the meson-melting transition. We perform the holographic computati…
We investigate BPS equations which determine the configuration of an M2-M5 bound state preserving half of the supersymmetries in the ABJM theory. We argue that the BPS equations are classically integrable, showing that they admit a Lax representation. The integrable structure of the BPS equations is closely related to that of the Nahm equations. Using this relation we formulate an efficient way of constructing solutions of the BPS equations from those of the Nahm equations. As an illustration of our method, we construct explicitly the most general solutions describing two M2-branes suspended b…
We construct the interaction terms between the world-volume fields of multiple M2-branes and the 3- and 6-form fields in the context of ABJM theory with U($N$)$\times$U($N$) gauge symmetry. A consistency check is made in the simplest case of a single M2-brane, i.e, our construction matches the known effective action of M2-brane coupled to antisymmetric 3-form field. We show that when dimensionally reduced, our couplings coincide with the effective action of D2-branes coupled to R-R 3- and 5-form fields in type IIA string theory. We also comment on the relation between a coupling with a specifi…
In this thesis we review some results on the generalization of the gauge/gravity duality to new cases by using T-duality and by including fundamental matter, finding applications to condensed matter physics. First, we construct new supersymmetric solutions of type IIA/B and eleven-dimensional supergravity by using non-abelian T-duality. Second, we construct a type IIA supergravity solution with D6-brane sources, dual to an unquenched massive flavored version of the ABJM theory. Third, we study a probe D6-brane with worldvolume gauge fields in the ABJM background, obtaining the dual description…
We present a new Fermi gas formalism for the ABJ matrix model. This formulation identifies the effect of the fractional M2-brane in the ABJ matrix model as that of a composite Wilson loop operator in the corresponding ABJM matrix model. Using this formalism, we study the phase part of the ABJ partition function numerically and find a simple expression for it. We further compute a few exact values of the partition function at some coupling constants. Fitting these exact values against the expected form of the grand potential, we can determine the grand potential with exact coefficients. The res…
We test the proposals for the worldvolume theory of M2-branes by studying its maximally supersymmetric mass-deformation. We check the simplest prediction for the mass-deformed theory on N M2-branes: that there should be a set of discrete vacua in one-to-one correspondence with partitions on N. For the mass-deformed Lorentzian three-algebra theory, we find only a single classical vacuum, casting doubt on its M2-brane interpretation. For the mass-deformed ABJM theory, we do find a discrete set of solutions, but these are more numerous than predicted. We discuss possible resolutions of this puzzl…
We give a brief account of the recently proposed N=3 superfield formulation of the N=6, 3D superconformal theory of Aharony et al (ABJM) describing a low-energy limit of the system of multiple M2-branes on the AdS_4 x S^7/Z_k background. This formulation is given in harmonic N=3 superspace and reveals a number of surprising new features. In particular, the sextic scalar potential of ABJM arises at the on-shell component level as the result of eliminating appropriate auxiliary fields, while there is no any explicit superpotential at the off-shell superfield level.
We obtain a general class of polynomials for which the Schrodinger operator has a discrete spectrum. This class includes all the scalar potentials in membrane, 5-brane, p-branes, multiple M2 branes, BLG and ABJM theories. We provide a proof of the discreteness of the spectrum of the associated Schrodinger operators. This a a first step in order to analyze BLG and ABJM supersymmetric theories from a non-perturbative point of view.
Mass-deformed ABJM theory has a maximally supersymmetric fuzzy two-sphere vacuum solution where the scalar fields are proportional to the TGRVV matrices. We construct these matrices using Schwinger oscillators. This shows that the ABJM gauge group that corresponds to the fuzzy two-sphere geometry is $U(N)\times U(N-1)$. We deconstruct the graviphoton term in the D4 brane theory. The normalization of this term is fixed by topological reasons. This gives us the correct normalization of the deconstructed U(1) gauge field and fixes the Yang -Mills coupling constant to the value which corresponds t…
We dimensionally reduce the ABJM model, obtaining a two-dimensional theory that can be thought of as a 'master action'. This encodes information about both T- and S-duality, i.e. describes fundamental (F1) and D-strings (D1) in 9 and 10 dimensions. The Higgsed theory at large VEV and large k yields D1-brane actions in 9d and 10d, depending on which auxiliary fields are integrated out. For N=1 there is a map to a Green-Schwarz string wrapping a nontrivial circle in C^4/Z_k.
We present the higgsing of three-dimensional N=6 superconformal ABJM type theories coupled to conformal supergravity, so called topologically gauged ABJM theory, thus providing a gravitational extension of previous work on the relation between N M2 and N D2-branes. The resulting N=6 supergravity theory appears at a chiral point similar to that of three-dimensional chiral gravity introduced recently by Li, Song and Strominger, but with the opposite sign for the Ricci scalar term in the lagrangian. We identify the supersymmetry in the broken phase as a particular linear combination of the supers…
We extend the hermitian three-algebra formulation of ABJM theory to include $U(1)$ factors. With attention payed to extra $U(1)$ factors, we refine the classification of $\N=6$ ABJM theories. We argue that essentially the only allowed gauge groups are $SU(N)\times SU(N)$, $U(N)\times U(M)$ and $Sp(N)\times U(1)$ and that we have only one independent Chern-Simons level in all these cases. Our argument is based on integrality of the $U(1)$ Chern-Simons levels and supersymmetry. A relation between monopole operators and Wilson lines in Chern-Simons theory suggests certain gauge representations of…
We find half-BPS vortex solitons, at both weak and strong coupling, in the N=6 supersymmetric mass deformation of ABJM theory with U(N) x U(N) gauge symmetry and Chern-Simons level k. The strong coupling gravity dual is obtained by performing a Z_k quotient of the N=8 supersymmetric eleven dimensional supergravity background of Lin, Lunin and Maldacena corresponding to the mass deformed M2-brane theory. At weak coupling, the BPS vortices preserving six supersymmetries are found in the Higgs vacuum of the theory where the gauge symmetry is broken to U(1) x U(1). The classical vortex solitons br…
M2-branes couple to a 3-form potential, which suggests that their description involves a non-abelian 2-gerbe or, equivalently, a principal 3-bundle. We show that current M2-brane models fit this expectation: they can be reformulated as higher gauge theories on such categorified bundles. We thus add to the still very sparse list of physically interesting higher gauge theories.
Using the matrix model which calculates the exact free energy of ABJM theory on S^3 we study non-perturbative effects in the large N expansion of this model, i.e., in the genus expansion of type IIA string theory on AdS4xCP^3. We propose a general prescription to extract spacetime instanton actions from general matrix models, in terms of period integrals of the spectral curve, and we use it to determine them explicitly in the ABJM matrix model, as exact functions of the 't Hooft coupling. We confirm numerically that these instantons control the asymptotic growth of the genus expansion. Further…
We explore further our recent generalization of the $\mathcal{N}=4$ superconformal Chern-Simons theories of Gaiotto and Witten. We find and construct explicitly theories of enhanced $\mathcal{N}=5$ or 6 supersymmetry, especially $\mathcal{N}=5$, $Sp(2M)\times O(N)$ and $\mathcal{N}=6$, $Sp(2M)\times O(2)$ theories. The $U(M)\times U(N)$ theory coincides with the $\mathcal{N}=6$ theory of Aharony, Bergman, Jafferis and Maldacena (ABJM). We argue that the $\mathcal{N}=5$ theory with $Sp(2N)\times O(2N)$ gauge group can be understood as an orientifolding of the ABJM model with $U(2N)\times U(2N)$…
We investigate BPS conditions preserving n/12 (n = 1,...,6) supersymmetries in the Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena (ABJM) model. The BPS equations are classified in terms of the number of preserved supercharges and remaining subgroups of the SU(4)_R symmetry. We study structures of a map between projection conditions for the supercharges in eleven dimensions and those in the ABJM model. The BPS configurations in the ABJM model can be interpreted as known BPS objects in eleven-dimensional Mtheory,such as intersecting M2, M5-branes, M-waves, KK-monopoles and M9-branes. We also show that these…
M2 brane in AdS$_4\times S^7/\mathbb Z_k$: 2-loop correction to $\frac{1}{2}$-BPS Wilson loop vs localization in ABJM theory
Università del Salento（萨伦托大学）；INFN - sezione di Lecce（意大利国家核物理研究所莱切分部）；Abdus Salam Centre for Theoretical Physics, Imperial College London（伦敦帝国理工学院阿卜杜斯·萨拉姆理论物理中心）；ITMP of MSU（莫斯科国立大学理论与数学物理研究所）；Lebedev Inst.（列别捷夫研究所）
We investigate conformal symmetries of the Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena (ABJM) theory for multiple M2 branes and the Lorentzian Bagger-Lambert-Gustavsson (L-BLG) theory which can be obtained by taking a scaling limit k (>>N) -> \infty of the ABJM theory. The conformal symmetry is maintained in the L-BLG by considering general space-time varying solutions to the constraint equations. The dual geometry is reduced to d=10 AdS4 x CP3 in the scaling limit and has the same conformal symmetry. The curvature radius R satisfies l_{11p} << l_{10p} << R << l_s (l_{dp} and l_s are the d-dimensional …
We discuss non-perturbative effects in the ABJM model due to monopole instantons. We begin by constructing the instanton solutions in the $U(2)\times U(2)$ model, explicitly, and computing the Euclidean action. The Wick-rotated Lagrangian is complex and its BPS monopole instantons are found to be a delicate version of the usual 't Hooft-Polyakov monopole solutions. They are generically 1/3 BPS but become 1/2 BPS at special locus in the moduli space of two M2-branes, yet each instanton carries eight fermionic zero modes, regardless of the vacuum choice. The low energy effective action induced b…
Our recent construction arXiv:0903.3966 for the fuzzy 2-sphere in terms of bifundamentals, discovered in the context of the ABJM model, is shown to be explicitly equivalent to the usual (adjoint) fuzzy sphere construction. The matrices $\tilde G^α$ that define it play the role of fuzzy Killing spinors on the 2-sphere, out of which all spherical harmonics are constructed. Starting from the quadratic fluctuation action around these solutions in the mass-deformed ABJM theory, we recover a supersymmetric D4-brane action wrapping a 2-sphere, including fermions. We obtain both the usual D4 action wi…
We study monopole-instantons in M2-brane theories, focussing on the ABJM class of Chern-Simons gauge theories coupled to matter. We calculate calculate explicitly the 8-fermion term in the effective action induced by these monopole-instantons, and discuss their role in resolving a classical singularity in the moduli space. The results are compared with monopole-instantons in N=8 3d SYM and D-brane theories, as well the dual supergravity description as a membrane scattering process.
We discuss some of the issues arising in trying to extend the ABJM action to include couplings to background fields. This is analogous to the Myers-Chern-Simons terms of the multiple Dp-brane action. We review and extend previous results to include terms which are quadratic in the background fields. These are fixed by requiring that we recover the correct Myers-type terms upon using the novel Higgs mechanism to reduce to the multiple D2-brane action.
We analyze orbifolds with discrete torsion of the ABJM theory by a finite subgroup $Γ$ of $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ . Discrete torsion is implemented by twisting the crossed product algebra resulting after orbifolding. It is shown that, in general, the order $m$ of the cocycle we chose to twist the algebra by enters in a non trivial way in the moduli space. To be precise, the M-theory fiber is multiplied by a factor of $m$ in addition to the other effects that were found before in the literature. Therefore we got a $\mathbb{Z}_{\frac{k|Γ|}{m}}$ action on the fiber. We present a general analysis on h…
We discuss thermodynamics of N M2-branes at strong coupling from the ABJM theory by employing the Smilga-Wiseman method, which explains the black Dp-brane thermodynamics from the maximally supersymmetric U(N) Yang-Mills theories through a field theory analysis. As a result we obtain the free energy of the ABJM theory ~N^{3/2}k^{1/2}T^3, which is consistent with the prediction from eleven-dimensional supergravity. We also estimate the free energy of N M5-branes by assuming some natural properties of the 6d superconformal field theory. Remarkably we obtain the free energy ~N^3T^6, which is consi…
We study marginal deformations of superconformal Chern-Simons matter theories that are based on 3-algebras. For this, we introduce the notion of an associated 3-product, which captures very general gauge invariant deformations of the superpotentials of the BLG and ABJM models. We also consider conformal multi-trace deformations preserving N=2 supersymmetry. We then use N=2 supergraph techniques to compute the two-loop beta functions of these deformations. Besides confirming conformal invariance of both the BLG and ABJM models, we also verify that the recently proposed beta-deformations of the …
The structures and the associated gauge algebra of ABJM theory in ${\cal N}=1$ superspace are reviewed. We derive the Ward identities of the theory in the class of Lorentz-type gauges at quantum level to justify the renormalizability of the model. We compute the Nielsen identities for the two-point functions of the theory with the help of enlarged BRST transformation. The identities are derived in ABJM theory to ensure the gauge independence of the physical poles of the Green's functions.
