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Type IIB S-folds: an exceptional approach

par Sterckx, Colin
Président du jury Compère, Geoffrey
Promoteur Guarino, Adolfo ;Argurio, Riccardo
Publication Non publié, 2023-06-29

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

We investigate the vacuum structure of the dyonic [SO(1, 1) × SO(6)] ⋉ R12 gaugedmaximal supergravity in four dimensions and find new families of AdS4 solutionswith residual N = 0, 1 or 2 supersymmetry, extending the known N = 4 solution.Using techniques from Exceptional Field Theory (ExFT), we uplift these solutions toType IIB supergravity on AdS4 × S1 × S5 . The resulting backgrounds are referredto as S-folds because they feature an S-duality monodromy induced by an hyperbolicelement of SL(2, Z) around the S1.S-folds are conjectured to be the holographic duals of new strongly coupled CFT3’sclosely related to localised interfaces in SYM4. In order to characterise the low-lyingoperator content and explore the possible existence of a conformal manifold of suchCFT3’s, we study the mass spectrum and moduli space of the S-fold solutions. Weprove that all S-folds with continuous residual symmetries admit exactly marginaldeformations breaking some, or all, of the residual (super)symmetries. These deformationsare generated in four dimensions by turning on axionic fields which we dub“flat deformations”.The Type IIB uplift of these deformations are classified in terms of mapping toriand shown to encode a geometric monodromy of the S5 over the S1. Focussing on theflat deformations of the original N = 4 S-fold, we establish the existence of a modulispace of non-supersymmetric, yet perturbatively stable, solutions. We also examinethe non-perturbative stability of the non-supersymmetric solutions and do not findany decay channel. These results challenge the non-SUSY AdS conjecture existing inthe literature.Next, we consider holographic RG-flows ending, in the IR, at the S-fold solutionsusing both numerical and semi-analytical techniques. We show that the S-folds arethe IR fixed points of anisotropic deformations of SYM4 placed on S1, in line withthe interface interpretation of their CFT duals. Moreover, we present an RG-flowconnecting the N = 1 solution in the UV to the N = 2 solution in the IR.Finally, we investigate the existence of possibly more generic S-folds whose effectivefour dimensional description cannot be captured by a maximal supergravitybut only by a half-maximal one. This leads us to investigate a class of gaugingsof ISO(3) × ISO(3) in N = 4 supergravity. Within this setup, we find a web ofAdS4 solutions preserving N = 2 supersymmetry with a special point of symmetryenhancement to an exotic N = 4 solution. The string theoretic realisation of thissolution, if any, is still lacking.