Related papers: A light dilaton in a metastable vacuum
The spectrum of bound states of special strongly coupled confining field theories might include a parametrically light dilaton, associated with the formation of enhanced condensates that break (approximate) scale invariance spontaneously.…
A two-parameter class of higher-dimensional, strongly coupled, confining field theories in the presence of magnetic fluxes for two Abelian gauge groups admits a top-down, holographic dual description. The corresponding two-parameter family…
We investigate the relation between the emergence of a dilaton in gapped (confining) field theories, and the presence of either complex fixed points or instabilities in the strongly coupled dynamics in two classes of bottom-up holographic…
We study a class of UV-complete, strongly coupled, confining three-dimensional field theories, that exhibit a novel stabilisation mechanism for the mass of the lightest scalar composite state, relying on the existence of a critical point.…
We analyze the stability properties of a simple holographic model for a confining field theory. The gravity dual consists of an Abelian gauge field, with non-trivial magnetic flux, coupled to six-dimensional gravity with a negative…
Within the bottom-up approach to holography, we construct a class of six-dimensional gravity models, and discuss solutions that can be interpreted, asymptotically in the far UV, in terms of dual five-dimensional conformal field theories…
We consider two established supergravities which are known to provide the low-energy effective description of either superstring theory or M-theory: the six-dimensional theory of Romans, and the maximal supergravity in seven dimensions. We…
We find a parametrically light dilaton in special confining theories in three dimensions. Their duals form what we call a scion of solutions to the supergravity associated with the large-N limit of the Coulomb branch of the N=4…
We present an holographic approach to strongly-coupled theories close to the conformal to non-conformal transition, trying to understand the presence of light scalars as recent lattice simulations seem to suggest. We find that the dilaton…
A new class of non-compact Kahler backgrounds accompanied by a non-constant dilaton field is constructed as a supergravity solution. It is interpreted as a complex line bundle over a base manifold comprising of a combination of arbitrary…
In the context of gauge/gravity dualities, we calculate the scalar and tensor mass spectrum of the boundary theory defined by a special 8-scalar sigma-model in five dimensions, the background solutions of which include the 1-parameter…
We discuss a holographic soft-wall model developed for the description of mesons and baryons with adjustable quantum numbers n, J, L, S. This approach is based on an action which describes hadrons with broken conformal invariance and which…
Many strongly coupled field theories admit a spectrum of gauge-invariant bound states that includes scalar particles with the same quantum numbers as the vacuum. The challenge naturally arises of how to characterise them. In particular, how…
We discuss the presence of a light dilaton in Conformal Field Theories deformed by a single scalar operator, in the holographic realization consisting of confining Renormalization Group flows. Then, we apply this formalism to study the…
We introduce an $N=1$ supergravity model based on the gauged shift symmetry of a single chiral multiplet, which can be identified with the string dilaton or a compactification modulus. The model allows for a tunably small and positive value…
We summarise highlights from an ongoing research programme that aims, in the long run, at the ambitious goal of building a realistic, complete holographic composite-Higgs model. This contribution focuses on vacuum misalignment, by showing…
We apply the dictionary of gauge-gravity dualities to study the spectrum of bound states in a special one-parameter family of strongly coupled, confining field theories in four dimensions. The top-down, holographic gravity dual description…
We study a simple holographic model for gauge theories near the conformal edge to show that the dilaton can be parametrically lighter than any other composite states. The masses of all composite states, except the Nambu-Goldstone bosons…
We study the properties of the dilaton in a soft-wall background using two solutions of the Einstein equations. These solutions contain an asymptotically AdS metric with a nontrivial scalar profile that causes both the spontaneous breaking…
We investigate the vacuum instability in the presence of dilaton field in a holographic set up. Although the dilaton is a bulk field, it leads to the vacuum instability on the boundary. We show that the whole process crucially depends on…