Related papers: Confinement in a finite duality cascade
We study N=1 gauge theories obtained by adding finite mass terms to N=4 Yang-Mills theory. The Maldacena dual is nonsingular: in each of the many vacua, there is an extended brane source, arising from Myers' dielectric effect. The source…
In pure N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills with gauge group SU(N), the domain walls which separate the N vacua have been argued, on the basis of string theory realizations, to be D-branes for the confining string. In a certain limit, this means…
$4d$ ${\mathcal N}=1$ super Yang-Mills (SYM) with simply connected gauge group $G$ has $h$ gapped vacua arising from the spontaneously broken discrete $R$-symmetry, where $h$ is the dual Coxeter number of $G$. Therefore, the theory admits…
Monte Carlo studies of pure glue SU(3) gauge theory using the overlap-based topological charge operator have revealed a laminar structure in the QCD vacuum consisting of extended, thin, coherent, locally 3-dimensional sheets of topological…
We use the long-wavelength effective theory of black branes (blackfold approach) to perturbatively construct holographic duals of the vacua of the $\mathcal{N}=1$* supersymmetric gauge theory. Employing the mechanism of Polchinski and…
We use dielectric branes to find non singular string theory duals of a perturbed 2+1 dimensional gauge theory living on D2 branes. By adding fermion masses we obtain theories with reduced supersymmetry. The Higgs vacua of the perturbed…
We revisit the singular IIB supergravity solution describing M fractional 3-branes on the conifold [hep-th/0002159]. Its 5-form flux decreases, which we explain by showing that the relevant \NN=1 SUSY SU(N+M)xSU(N) gauge theory undergoes…
Coincident D3-branes placed at a conical singularity are related to string theory on $AdS_5\times X_5$, for a suitable five-dimensional Einstein manifold $X_5$. For the example of the conifold, which leads to $X_5=T^{1,1}=(SU(2)\times…
We discuss within the weak-field approximation and the derivative expansion how the area law of the Wilson loop follows directly from the vacuum condensate of mass dimension 2, i.e., simultaneous Bose-Einstein condensation of gluon pair and…
We construct a family of holographic duals to anisotropic states in a strongly coupled gauge theory. On the field theory side the anisotropy is generated by giving a vacuum expectation value to a dimension three operator. We obtain our…
This work studies domain walls between chirally-separated vacua in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory (SYM) on $\mathbb{R}^3\times\mathbb{S}^1$ in the semiclassical limit. For all gauge groups we explicitly find the electric fluxes of all BPS…
We study the vacuum structure and dyon spectrum of N=2 supersymmetric gauge theory in four dimensions, with gauge group SU(2). The theory turns out to have remarkably rich and physical properties which can nonetheless be described…
We compute the large N limit of Wilson loop expectation values for a broad class of N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories defined on a general class of background three-manifolds M_3, diffeomorphic to S^3. We find a simple closed formula which…
A novel approach that does not rely on supersymmetry, nor in the AdS/CFT correspondence, to evaluate the Wilson loops asociated with a gauge theory of area-preserving diffeomorphisms in terms of pure string degrees of freedoms is presented.…
We conduct a study of holographic RG flows whose UV is a theory in 2+1 dimensions decoupled from gravity, and the IR is the N=6,8 superconformal fixed point of ABJM. The solutions we consider are constructed by warping the M-theory…
We classify ``truly confining'' (t-confining) supersymmetric gauge theories, in which no center charges can be screened, and Wilson loops in the fundamental representation are therefore expected to exhibit an area law. In all cases, we…
We propose a gauge-independent mechanism for the area-law behavior of Wilson loop expectation values in terms of worldsheets spanning Wilson loops interacting with the spin foams that contribute to the vacuum partition function. The method…
We first derive a class of six-dimensional (1,0) gauged supergravities arising from threefold compactifications of F-theory with background fluxes. The derivation proceeds via the M-theory dual reduction on an SU(3)-structure manifold with…
We find a dual gravity theory to pure confining N=1 supersymmetric SU(N) gauge theory in four dimensions which has the correct gauge coupling running in addition to reproducing the appropriate pattern of chiral symmetry breaking. It is…
Confinement in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), binding quarks and gluons into hadrons, is characterized by a linear potential and the Wilson loop area law. We develop an analytical framework in $\text{SU(3)}$ gauge theory, proposing a hybrid…