N = 2* Phase Transitions and Holography

Abstract

We clarify the relationship between probe analysis of the supergravity dual and the large-N solution of the localization matrix model for the planar N = 2* super-Yang-Mills theory. A formalism inspired by supergravity allows us to systematically solve the matrix model at strong coupling. Quite surprisingly, we find that quantum phase transitions, known to occur in the N = 2* theory, start to be visible at the third order of the strong-coupling expansion and thus constitute a perturbative phenomenon on the string worldsheet.

36 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (4)

• N=2* Super-Yang-Mills Theory at Strong Coupling
• Quantum Phase Transitions in Mass-Deformed ABJM Matrix Model
• N=2 gauge theories and quantum phases
• Large $N_c$ from Seiberg-Witten Curve and Localization

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Dynamics of non-Abelian strings in the theory interpolating from $\mathcal{N}=2$ to $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetric QCD