Cyril Closset

Chiral flavors and M2-branes at toric CY4 singularities

We extend the stringy derivation of

From rigid supersymmetry to twisted holomorphic theories

\mathcal{N} = 2

On stable non-supersymmetric vacua at the bottom of cascading theories

AdS4/CFT3 dualities to cases where the M-theory circle degenerates at complex codimension-two submanifolds of a toric conical CY4. The type IIA backgrounds include D6-branes, and the dual

N=2 cascade revisited and the enhancon bearings

\mathcal{N} = 2

Gauge/gravity duality and the interplay of various fractional branes

quiver gauge theories contain chiral flavors. We provide a general recipe to derive the geometric moduli space of flavored versions of Abelian toric quiver gauge theories. The CY4 cone is reproduced thanks to a non-trivial quantum F-term relation between diagonal monopole operators and bifundamental fields. We find new field theory duals to many geometries, including Q111.

Localization of twisted

We study N = 1 field theories with a U(1)R symmetry on compact four-manifolds M. Supersymmetry requires M to be a complex manifold. The supersymmetric theory on M can be described in terms of conventional fields coupled to background supergravity, or in terms of twisted fields adapted to the complex geometry of M. Many properties of the theory that are difficult to see in one formulation are simplerin the other one. We use the twisted description to study the dependence of the partition function ZM on the geometry of M, as well as coupling constants and background gauge fields, recovering and extending previous results. We also indicate how to generalize our analysis to three-dimensional N = 2 theories with a U(1)R symmetry. In this case supersymmetry requires M to carry a transversely holomorphic foliation, which endows it with a near-perfect analogue of complex geometry. Finally, we present new explicit formulas for the dependence of ZM on the choice of U(1)R symmetry in four and three dimensions, and illustrate them for complex manifolds diffeomorphic to S 3 ×S 1 , as well as general squashed three-spheres.

\mathcal{N}{=}(0,2)

We consider a wide class of cascading gauge theories which usually lead to runaway behaviour in the IR, and discuss possible deformations of the superpotential at the bottom of the cascade which stabilize the runaway direction and provide stable non-supersymmetric vacua. The models we find may allow for a weakly coupled supergravity analysis of dynamical supersymmetric breaking in the context of the gauge/string correspondence.

gauged linear sigma models in two dimensions

Supergravity backgrounds with varying fluxes generated by fractional branes at nonisolated Calabi-Yau singularities had escaped a precise dual field theory interpretation so far. In the present work, considering the prototypical example of such models, the CxC{sup 2}/Z{sub 2} orbifold, we propose a solution for this problem, and show that the known cascading solution corresponds to a vacuum on the Coulomb branch of the corresponding quiver gauge theory involving a sequence of strong coupling transitions reminiscent of the baryonic root of N=2 supersymmetric quantum chromodynamics . We also find a slight modification of this cascading vacuum which upon mass deformation is expected to flow to the Klebanov-Strassler cascade. Finally, we discuss an infinite class of vacua on the Coulomb branch whose renormalization group flows include infinitely coupled conformal regimes, and explain their gravitational manifestation in terms of new geometric structures that we dub enhancon bearings. Repulson-free backgrounds dual to all the vacua we analyze are explicitly provided.

A Quiver of Many Runaways

We consider different types of fractional branes on a Z{sub 2} orbifold of the conifold and analyze in detail the corresponding gauge/gravity duality. The gauge theory possesses a rich and varied dynamics, both in the UV and in the IR. We find the dual supergravity solution, which contains both untwisted and twisted 3-form fluxes, related to what are known as deformation and N=2 fractional branes, respectively. We analyze the resulting renormalization group flow from the supergravity perspective, by developing an algorithm to easily extract it. We find hints of a generalization of the familiar cascade of Seiberg dualities due to a nontrivial interplay between the different types of fractional branes. We finally consider the IR behavior in several limits, where the dominant effective dynamics is either confining in a Coulomb phase or runaway, and discuss the resolution of singularities in the dual geometric background.

Localization of twisted N = 0 , 2

A bstractWe study two-dimensional N=0,2