Twisted circle compactification of $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM and its Holographic Dual

Abstract

We consider a compactification of 4D $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM, with $SU(N)$ gauge group, on a circle with anti-periodic boundary conditions for the fermions. We couple the theory to a constant background gauge field along the circle for an abelian subgroup of the $R$-symmetry which allows to preserve four supersymmetries. The 3D effective theory exhibits gapped and ungapped phases, which we argue are holographically dual, respectively, to a supersymmetric soliton in AdS${}_5\times S^5$, and a particular quotient of AdS${}_5\times S^5$. The gapped phase corresponds to an IR 3D $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory at level $N$, while the ungapped phase is naturally identified with the root of a Higgs branch in the 3D theory. We discuss the extension of the twisting procedure to maximally SUSY Yang-Mills theories in different dimensions, obtaining the relevant duals for 2D and 6D, and comment on the odd dimensional cases.

arXiv comment27 pages. v2: Modified discussion around probe branes, references added. Version to appear in JHEP