Daniel Arean

Supersymmetric probes on the conifold

We study the supersymmetric embeddings of different D-brane probes in the AdS5 ? T1,1 geometry. The main tool employed is kappa symmetry and the cases studied include D3-, D5- and D7-branes. We find a family of three-cycles of the T1,1 space over which a D3-brane can be wrapped supersymmetrically and we determine the field content of the corresponding gauge theory duals. Supersymmetric configurations of D5-branes wrapping a two-cycle and of spacetime filling D7-branes are also found. The configurations in which the entire T1,1 space is wrapped by a D5-brane (baryon vertex) and a D7-brane are also studied. Some other embeddings which break supersymmetry but are nevertheless stable are also determined.

Open string modes at brane intersections

We study systematically the open string modes of a general class of BPS intersections of branes. We work in the approximation in which one of the branes is considered as a probe embedded in the near-horizon geometry generated by the other type of branes. We mostly concentrate on the D3-D5 and D3-D3 intersections, which are dual to defect theories with a massive hypermultiplet confined to the defect. In these cases we are able to obtain analytical expressions for the fluctuation modes of the probe and to compute the corresponding mass spectra of the dual operators in closed form. Other BPS intersections are also studied and their fluctuation modes and spectra are found numerically.

Adding flavor to the gravity dual of non-commutative gauge theories

We study the addition of flavor degrees of freedom to the supergravity dual of the non-commutative deformation of the maximally supersymmetric gauge theories. By considering D7 flavor branes in the probe approximation and studying their fluctuations we extract the spectrum of scalar and vector mesons as a function of the non-commutativity. We find that the spectrum for very large non-commutative parameter is equal to the one in the commutative theory, while for some intermediate values of the non-commutativity some of the modes disappear from the discrete spectrum. We also study the semiclassical dynamics of rotating open strings attached to the D7-brane, which correspond to mesons with large spin. Under the effect of the non-commutativity the open strings get tilted. However, at small(large) distances they display the same Regge-like (Coulombic) behaviour as in the commutative theory. We also consider the addition of D5-flavor branes to the non-commutative deformation of the = 1 supersymmetric Maldacena-Nunez background.

Holographic flavor on the Higgs branch

In this paper we study the holographic dual, in several spacetime dimensions, of the Higgs branch of gauge theories with fundamental matter. These theories contain defects of various codimensionalities, where the matter fields are located. In the holographic description the matter is added by considering flavor brane probes in the supergravity backgrounds generated by color branes, while the Higgs branch is obtained when the color and flavor branes recombine with each other. We show that, generically, the holographic dual of the Higgs phase is realized by means of the addition of extra flux on the flavor branes and by choosing their appropriate embedding in the background geometry. This suggests a dielectric interpretation in terms of the color branes, whose vacuum solutions precisely match the F- and D-flatness conditions obtained on the field theory side. We further compute the meson mass spectra in several cases and show that when the defect added has codimension greater than zero it becomes continuous and gapless.

Mesons and Higgs branch in defect theories

Abstract We consider the defect theory obtained by intersecting D3- and D5-branes along two common spatial directions. We work in the approximation in which the D5-brane is a probe in the AdS 5 × S 5 background. By adding worldvolume flux to the D5-brane and choosing an appropriate embedding of the probe in AdS 5 × S 5 , one gets a supersymmetric configuration in which some of the D3-branes recombine with the D5-brane. We check this fact by showing that the D5-brane can be regarded as a system of polarized D3-branes. On the field theory side this corresponds to the Higgs branch of the defect theory, where some of the fundamental hypermultiplet fields living on the intersection acquire a vacuum expectation value. We study the spectrum of mesonic bound states of the defect theory in this Higgs branch and show that it is continuous and gapless.

Adding flavor on the Higgs branch

We study the holographic dual of the Higgs branch of = 4 SYM in four dimensions coupled to quenched fundamental matter. The fundamentals are added via flavor D7-branes and the Higgs phase is obtained when the color D3-branes and the flavor D7-branes recombine with each other. The holographic dual consists of D7-brane probes in the background generated by the color D3-branes. In this supergravity dual the Higgs phase is realized by switching on a selfdual field strength on the worldvolume of the D7-branes. A complementary microscopic description in terms of dielectric D3-branes is also possible. This microscopic approach permits a better matching with the dual field theory analysis. Finally, the meson mass spectrum is computed by studying the fluctuations of the flavor D7-branes.