Related papers: Ensembles in M-theory and Holography
We study $\textrm{AdS}_2\times S^4 \times S^2 \times \Sigma_2$ solutions in type IIB string theory arising from D1 -- D3 -- NS5 brane intersections. These backgrounds enjoy sixteen supercharges and the corresponding internal geometry is…
The dissertation consists of two parts. The first presents an account of the effective worldvolume description of $N$ coincident M2-branes ending on an M5-brane in M-theory. It reviews Basu and Harvey's recent description of the worldvolume…
We study the partition function associated with the democratic formulation of M-theory, focusing on its global definition and quantum properties. Using a path-integral representation that makes manifest the underlying cohomological…
We study quantum M2-branes in holographic backgrounds and show that their moduli spaces of zero-modes are localised according to an R-symmetry Killing vector. We discuss the relation with recent results in the context of equivariant…
We consider the topological and geometric structures associated with cohomological and homological objects in M-theory. For the latter, we have M2-branes and M5-branes, the analysis of which requires the underlying spacetime to admit a…
We show that holography imposes strong and general constraints on scalar field potentials in the string landscape, determined by the asymptotic structure of the underlying spacetime. Applying these holographic consistency conditions, we…
We generalize the $T\overline{T}$ deformation of CFT$_2$ to higher-dimensional large-$N$ CFTs, and show that in holographic theories, the resulting effective field theory matches semiclassical gravity in AdS with a finite radial cutoff. We…
We study the correspondence between AdS$_3$ massive IIA supergravity vacua and two-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=(0,4)$ quiver quantum field theories. After categorizing all kinds of gravity solutions, we demystify the ones that seem to reflect…
We initiate a study of the holographic duals of a class of four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal field theories that are engineered by wrapping M5-branes on a sphere with an irregular puncture. These notably include the…
We use the results of our companion paper arXiv:2502.20444, which explores the equivariant generalization of the constant-map contribution in topological string theory on toric Calabi--Yau manifolds $X$, to establish a holographic…
We develop both the gravity and field theory sides of the Karch-Randall conjecture that the near-horizon description of a certain D5-D3 brane configuration in string theory, realized as AdS_5 x S^5 bisected by an AdS_4 x S^2 "brane", is…
This thesis focuses on the derivation of holographic backgrounds from the field theory side, without using any supergravity equations of motion. Instead, we rely on the addition of probe D-branes to the stack of D-branes generating the…
The purpose of this thesis is to explore the properties of multiple coincident M2- and M5-branes. We begin with a review of the BLG and ABJM models of multiple M2-branes and our focus will be on their formulation in terms of 3-algebras. We…
We discuss the semi-classical quantisation of supersymmetric membranes in holographic geometries with asymptotic AdS$_4$ and AdS$_7$ boundary conditions. In AdS$_4$ geometries this quantisation prompts the need of ensemble changes when…
We construct the interaction terms between the world-volume fields of multiple M2-branes and the 3- and 6-form fields in the context of ABJM theory with U($N$)$\times$U($N$) gauge symmetry. A consistency check is made in the simplest case…
We use the techniques of "algebraic Killing spinors" to obtain a family of holographic flow solutions with four supersymmetries in M-theory. The family of supersymmetric backgrounds constructed here includes the non-trivial flow to the…
We study the dynamics of D-branes in a smooth time-dependent background. The theory on the branes is a time-dependent non-commutative field theory. We find the metric and fluxes that determine the dual holographic closed string theory. This…
We discuss the coupling of multiple M2-branes to the background 3-form and 6-form gauge fields of eleven-dimensional supergravity, including the coupling of the Fermions. In particular we show in detail how a natural generalization of the…
I compare two holographic mechanisms giving to the graviton a parametrically-small supersymmetric mass $m_g$ in Anti-de Sitter spacetime. In the context of bi-metric gravity these mechanisms couple `weakly' two initially decoupled…
We review recent progress in the study of non-rational (boundary) conformal field theories and their applications to describe exact holographic backgrounds in superstring theory. We focus mainly on the example of the supersymmetric coset…