A new 6d fixed point from holography

Abstract

We propose a stringy construction giving rise to a class of interacting and non-supersymmetric CFT's in six dimensions. Such theories may be obtained as an IR conformal fixed point of an RG flow ending up in a $(1, 0)$ theory in the UV. We provide the due holographic evidence in the context of massive type IIA on $\textrm {AdS}_{7}\times M_3$, where $M_3$ is topologically an $S^3$. In particular, in this paper we present a 10d flow solution which may be interpreted as a non-BPS bound state of NS5, D6 and $\overline{\textrm{D6}}$ branes. Moreover, by adopting its 7d effective description, we are able to holographically compute the free energy and the operator spectrum in the novel IR conformal fixed point.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: In this picture, the vertical lines are D8 branes extending along the $x^{7,8,9}$ dimensions, they look like walls separating the six space-time dimensions in common between the NS5 and D6 branes. The fat dots are the stacks of NS5 branes and the horizontal lines correspond to D6 branes extending along $x^6$.
• Figure 2: The shaded horizontal segments symbolize $\overline{\textrm{D6}}$ branes extending between NS5 branes.
• Figure 3: Plot of potential \ref{['eq:NS5pot']}.
• Figure 4: An artist's impression of the non-susy RG flow for a specific example of $(1,0)$ theory. The vertical arrows indicate the evolution of the flow, whereas the horizontal blue arrows describe the attractive force between NS5 branes driven by tachyon condensation. Annihilation and attraction of the NS5 happen to be a simultaneous process as indicated by the potential \ref{['eq:NS5pot']}.
• Figure 5: The profile of the fake superpotential $\widetilde{W}(\phi)$ solving the differential condition (\ref{['VfromfakeW']}) on the interval $\left[-\sqrt{\frac{2}{5}}\,\log 2,\,0\right]$. Note that, in contrast with the actual superpotential obtained by specifying (\ref{['Wexpr']}) to this gauging, $\widetilde{W}$ has a stationary point at both extrema, i.e. both Sol. 1 & 3 are fake-supersymmetric.