Comparing top-down and bottom-up holographic defects and boundaries
Abstract
In this work we consider domain walls and end-of-the-world branes in AdS/CFT, holographically dual to codimension-one conformal defects and conformal boundaries respectively. In this setting there is an analogue of the ``bulk point'' singularity in boundary correlation functions, which we use to compare top-down and bottom-up constructions of these systems. For example, for a range of parameters the D3/D5 boundary CFT cannot be imitated by a tensionful end-of-the-world brane coupled to Einstein gravity, and in another range it can be modeled with a negative tension brane. Along the way we compute the central charge for the M2/M5 boundary CFT.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2504.13244,
title = {Comparing top-down and bottom-up holographic defects and boundaries},
author = {William Harvey and Kristan Jensen and Takahiro Uzu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.13244},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
43 pages, 13 figures, version 2 (2 changes). Change #1: corrected a sign error in equation (3.8) plus everywhere in-text it showed up. Change #2: Added 2 citations and corresponding comments in our discussion of the D3/D5 BCFT causal structure